Jacob's Room: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton Critical Editions) - Softcover

Woolf, Virginia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 039392632X ISBN 13: 9780393926323

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007

Synopsis

Jacob’s Room is Virginia Woolf’s experimental third novel, set in England during the halcyon days before World War I. The text reprinted here is the first British edition, which Woolf approved, and which retains her original layout, including paragraph spacing.

A generous “Contexts” section provides extracts from Woolf’s diaries and letters as well as comments on the novel from her fellow writers and friends, among them E. M. Forster and T. S. Eliot. Also included are the short stories “The Mark on the Wall,” “Kew Gardens,” and “An Unwritten Novel,” which Woolf viewed as early experiments with the innovative method used in Jacob’s Room. An additional short story, “A Woman’s College from Outside,” which Woolf originally intended to be Chapter 10 of Jacob’s Room, is also included. Finally, Woolf’s classic essay “Modern Novels,” written shortly before she began work on Jacob’s Room, provides insight into her aesthetic and technique.

“Criticism” is divided into two sections: “Contemporary Reception and Reviews” contains personal responses to the novel, from Lytton Strachey and E. M. Forster, as well as eleven reviews from contemporary periodicals. “Critical Essays” offers insightful interpretations by Judy Little, Alex Zwerdling, Kate Flint, Kathleen Wall, and Edward L. Bishop.

A Selected Bibliography is also included.

About this title

Book Description:

First published in 1922, Jacobs Room was Virginia Woolfs third novel and the first in her more experimental mode. Set in the years leading up to the First World War, the work is an elegy, not just for an individual character, but for a generation lost in and affected by the war.This Shakespeare Head Press edition restores the text to its original form, notably recreating the space breaks on the page with which Woolf deliberately fragmented her narrative. The editor provides an extensive introduction, discussing the genesis of the novel, its biographical elements, the process of composition and revision, and the history of its early critical reception. A series of notes helps the reader to identify references and allusions, from sponge-bag trousers and gold beaters skin to Tonks and Steer, and the Hampstead Garden Suburbs; while an appendix lists variants between the first UK and first US editions of the work.

From the Inside Flap:

Virginia Woolf's first original and distinguished work, Jacob's Room is the story of a sensitive young man named Jacob Flanders. The life story, character and friends of Jacob are presented in a series for separate scenes and moments from his childhood, through college at Cambridge, love affairs in London, and travels in Greece, to his death in the war. Jacob's Room established Virginia Woolf's reputation as a highly poetic and symbolic writer who places emphasis not on plot or action but on the psychological realm of occupied by her characters.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 039392632X
• ISBN 13: 9780393926323
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352
• Editor: Raitt Suzanne