Between the Acts - Softcover

Woolf, Virginia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1604444290 ISBN 13: 9781604444292

Publisher: Indoeuropeanpublishing.com, 2011

Synopsis

Between the Acts is the final novel by Virginia Woolf, published in 1941 shortly after her suicide. This is a book laden with hidden meaning and allusion. It describes the mounting, performance, and audience of a festival play (hence the title) in a small English village just before the outbreak of the Second World War. Much of it looks forward to the war, with veiled allusions to connection with the continent by flight, swallows representing aircraft, and plunging into darkness. The pageant is a play within a play, representing a rather cynical view of English history. Woolf links together many different threads and ideas - a particularly interesting technique being the use of rhyme words to suggest hidden meanings. Relationships between the characters and aspects of their personalities are explored. The English village bonds throughout the play through their differences and similarities. (wikipedia.org)

About this title

Book Description:

Unlike most previous editions, the Cambridge edition returns to the final version of the novel as Woolf left it. With detailed explanatory notes, a chronology and an informative critical introduction, this volume will allow scholars to develop a fuller understanding of Woolf's last work.

From the Back Cover:

Initially overshadowed by Virginia Woolf's death and the Second World War, Between the Acts is now judged to be among the author's most challenging and subtle works. It is about many things, including marriage and jealousy, language and memory, artists, arts and audiences, and a society on the brink of war. In her early plans she called Between the Acts a medley. Included in the mix are literary genres she had written about throughout her career, echoes of her own works and allusions that range from the classics to popular songs. As the extensive notes to this edition show, in writing Between the Acts Woolf drew upon a capacious memory filled by a lifetime of reading, writing, listening and observing.

Between the Acts is both Woolf's last novel and the first of her works to be published posthumously. The first English edition was set from her final typescript, edited by Leonard Woolf for publication by the Hogarth Press soon after her death. The text of the Shakespeare Head Press edition is that of the first English edition emended on the basis of a comparison of it with her final typescript. The result is a text that is closer to Between the Acts as Virginia Woolf left it than are any earlier editions.

About this edition

• Publisher: Indoeuropeanpublishing.com
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1604444290
• ISBN 13: 9781604444292
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 136