Mrs Dalloway details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional upper-class woman in post-First World War England. It is one of Woolf's best-known novels.
The working title of Mrs Dalloway was The Hours. The novel began as two short stories, Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street and the unfinished The Prime Minister. The book describes Clarissa's preparations for a party she will host in the evening and the ensuing party. With an interior perspective, the story travels forward and backward in time to construct an image of Clarissa's life and of the inter-war social structure. The novel addresses the nature of time in personal experience through multiple interwoven stories.
In October 2005 Mrs Dalloway was included on TIME Magazine's list of the 100 Best English-Language Novels written since its first issue in 1923.
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