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  • Published: 16 March 2027
  • ISBN: 9798217461196
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $34.99

The Waves

A Novel




A beautiful hardcover edition of the most ambitious and visionary novel by the author of To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway, with a new introduction by Frances Spalding

Virginia Woolf’s lyrical and innovative masterpiece, first published in 1931, interweaves the voices of six characters, beginning in their childhood in a garden by the sea and following them throughout their lives. As the three boys and three girls grow up, they navigate friendships and loves, triumphs and regrets, and they grieve for the death of a seventh character, their beloved friend Percival.

Interspersed throughout the characters’ interior monologues are brief scenes of the seaside that progress through a single day, from dawn to sunset, over the course of the novel. Defying classification, THE WAVES boldly breaks down the barriers between poetry and prose, as well as those between the consciousnesses of Woolf’s individual characters, producing an entrancing and groundbreaking work of literature that has captivated generations of readers.

  • Published: 16 March 2027
  • ISBN: 9798217461196
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $34.99

About the author

Virginia Woolf

VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882-1941) was born in London. A pioneer in the narrative use of stream of consciousness, she published her first novel, The Voyage Out, in 1915. This was followed by literary criticism and essays, most notably A Room of One’s Own, and other acclaimed novels, including Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Orlando.

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Praise for The Waves

"Mrs. Woolf, so far as the novel is concerned has almost reached the jumping-off place…The texture of the prose is a warp of sensory impressions woven into woof of poetical abstraction. As prose it has very often a high distinction—it is clear, bright, burnished, at once marvelously accurate and subtly connotative. The pure, delicate sensibility found in this language and the moods that it expresses are a true kind of poetry." —The New York Times

"[Virginia Woolf] had the gift of epiphany."
—Teju Cole, author of Open City

"I love [Woolf's] strength and fragility in equal measure."
—Deborah Levy, author of Hot Milk