The Waves -
Virginia Woolf
1931 - Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, London - First Edition
A fine first edition of Woolf’s most complex and innovative novel, in a nice example of the delicate Vanessa Bell designed dust jacket, without restoration.
‘The pure, delicate sensibility found in this language and the moods that it expresses are a true kind of poetry.’ – The New York Times
Tracing the lives of a group of friends, following their development from childhood to youth to middle age. While social events, individual achievements and disappointments form its narrative, the novel is most remarkable for the rich poetic language that expresses the inner life of its characters – their aspirations, their triumphs and regrets, their awareness of unity and isolation. Separately and together, they query the relationship of past to present, and the meaning of life itself. Woolf “described in her diary the agony, the manic exaltation which came over her as she completed the last pages of Bernard’s reverie.
‘Saturday, February 7th.
‘Here in the few minutes that remains, I must record, heaven be praised, the end of The Waves. I wrote the words O Death fifteen minutes ago, having reeled across the last ten pages with some moments of such intensity and intoxication that I seemed only to stumble after my own voice, or almost after some sort of speaker (as when I was mad). I was almost afraid, remembering the voices that used to fly ahead.’” [Connolly]
'A book of great beauty and a prose poem of genius' – Stephen Spender.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is regarded as a major 20th century author and essayist, a key figure in literary history as a feminist and modernist, and the centre of 'The Bloomsbury Group'. This informal collective of artists and writers, which included Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry, exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture. Between 1925 and 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces, from Mrs Dalloway (1925) to the poetic and highly experimental novel The Waves (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism, short fiction, journalism and biography, including the playfully subversive Orlando (1928) and A Room of One's Own (1929) a passionate feminist essay.
References: Connolly, Modern Movement, 70. Kirkpatrick, A Bibliography of Virginia Woolf, A16a. Penguin Classics, web. Kronenberger, ‘Poetic Brilliance in the New Novel by Mrs Woolf’ The New York Times 1931.
Octavo (book size 19x13.5cm), pp. 325 [3]. In publisher’s purple cloth, spine lettered in gilt, all edges trimmed. Dust jacket designed by Vanessa Bell, priced ‘7/6’ to the spine. Condition: Fine but for some slight darkening to spine, bright gilt, no foxing, in the delicate very good dust jacket, spine toned, small chips and wear to spine ends, short splits to spine fold.. Ref: 112274 Price: HK$ 28,000
‘The pure, delicate sensibility found in this language and the moods that it expresses are a true kind of poetry.’ – The New York Times
Tracing the lives of a group of friends, following their development from childhood to youth to middle age. While social events, individual achievements and disappointments form its narrative, the novel is most remarkable for the rich poetic language that expresses the inner life of its characters – their aspirations, their triumphs and regrets, their awareness of unity and isolation. Separately and together, they query the relationship of past to present, and the meaning of life itself. Woolf “described in her diary the agony, the manic exaltation which came over her as she completed the last pages of Bernard’s reverie.
‘Saturday, February 7th.
‘Here in the few minutes that remains, I must record, heaven be praised, the end of The Waves. I wrote the words O Death fifteen minutes ago, having reeled across the last ten pages with some moments of such intensity and intoxication that I seemed only to stumble after my own voice, or almost after some sort of speaker (as when I was mad). I was almost afraid, remembering the voices that used to fly ahead.’” [Connolly]
'A book of great beauty and a prose poem of genius' – Stephen Spender.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is regarded as a major 20th century author and essayist, a key figure in literary history as a feminist and modernist, and the centre of 'The Bloomsbury Group'. This informal collective of artists and writers, which included Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry, exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture. Between 1925 and 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces, from Mrs Dalloway (1925) to the poetic and highly experimental novel The Waves (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism, short fiction, journalism and biography, including the playfully subversive Orlando (1928) and A Room of One's Own (1929) a passionate feminist essay.
References: Connolly, Modern Movement, 70. Kirkpatrick, A Bibliography of Virginia Woolf, A16a. Penguin Classics, web. Kronenberger, ‘Poetic Brilliance in the New Novel by Mrs Woolf’ The New York Times 1931.
Octavo (book size 19x13.5cm), pp. 325 [3]. In publisher’s purple cloth, spine lettered in gilt, all edges trimmed. Dust jacket designed by Vanessa Bell, priced ‘7/6’ to the spine. Condition: Fine but for some slight darkening to spine, bright gilt, no foxing, in the delicate very good dust jacket, spine toned, small chips and wear to spine ends, short splits to spine fold.. Ref: 112274 Price: HK$ 28,000