• ISBN13: 9781441191229
• Binding: Paperback
• Subject: English Literature
• Publisher: Continuum
• Publisher Imprint: Continuum
• Publication Date: January 1, 2016
• Pages: 216
• Original Price: GBP 21.99
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 282 grams
• BISAC Subject(s): European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh

Virginia Woolf is one of the best-known and most influential modernist writers; an iconic figure, her image and reference to her work and life appear in the most varied of cultural sites. Her writing is, however, in many ways kaleidoscopic and has given rise to a diverse and, sometimes, conflicting body of critical work. Whilst Woolf envisaged that her readers could be 'fellow-worker s]' in the creative process, there is much to perplex any reader approaching her writing, especially for the first time.

Drawing on some of the main critical debates and on Woolf's non-fictional writings, this guide untangles some of the difficulties and perplexities that can prove a barrier to understanding of Woolf's writing. These include aspects of the process of writing (such as narrative techniques, formal structures, characterisation), as well as the thematic concerns so central to Woolf's writing, the cultural context in which it emerged and to recent criticism, including representations of gender and sexuality, class and race.

Simpson, Kathryn: - Kathryn Simpson is an independent scholar. Her previous books include Virginia Woolf: A Guide for the Perplexed (Bloomsbury, 2016) and Gifts, Markets and Economies of Desire in Virginia Woolf, (2008). She is co-editor of Virginia Woolf: Twenty-First-Century Approaches (2014).