Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
A historical document in its own right, with its descriptions of a London weekday just after the First World war, but also an extraordinary commentary on the richness of the human mind. As one day unfolds, Mrs. Dalloway reflects on her lost loves of both sexes, plans a party, regrets the war, reflects on power, is both moved and unmoved by traumatic events around her and is curiously aware of the cricket scores, though she knows little about the sport. She is, you realise a fully paid up member of what we would now call "the metropolitan elite" and yet her "silver-green mermaid’s dress" is a metaphor for us all, between how we appear and what we are "really". Woolf teases historians: what is this day about; the Prime Minister attending a party? A late casualty of the First World War? A privileged woman who is still disempowered? Surrey's humiliation at cricket? All of these things, but we are all constant editors of our own stories.
