The Second Common Reader

by Virginia Woolf

Here, in twenty-six essays, Woolf writes of English literature in its various forms, including the poetry of Donne; the novels of Defoe, Sterne, Meredith, and Hardy; Lord Chesterfield’s letters and De Quincey’s autobiography. She writes, too, about the life and art of women. Edited and with an Introduction by Andrew McNeillie; Index.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Books About Books, Literary Criticism, Classics, Criticism, 20th Century

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1932

About the author

(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Reviews

[Violet wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

In some of these essays Woolf plucks obscure letter writers from history. She marvels at the marvel these individuals would know to learn their letters were being read and of interest centuries later. I love the delight Virginia takes in other people's lives, how she can bring to life in imagination an entire world from a handful of clues. You can sense throughout these essays how compellingly biography interests her. It's no surprise that she wrote To the Lighthouse, Orlando and The Waves during the span of writing these essays. All three novels are innovative in the way they develop and present character, in the way they approach biography. Her essay on the autobiography of De Quincey is almost a template of her method of creating the form of The Waves. When she's reading an Elizabethan text you can sense the joy she takes in the detail, the textures, the flights of imagination they inspire which anticipates all the rampant mischievous sensuality of Orlando. In all these essays we receive intimate insights into her creative mind at work. She's thinking about her own books the whole time. The criticisms she makes like reminders to herself. She's constantly educating herself about the craft of writing. And she's educating herself about the nature of life too as we all do when we read.

[Smiley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Last year I came across The Common Reader Vol. I at a Kinokuniya Bookstore in Bangkok and ordered Vol. II immediately. In fact, these famed two volumes have been published in various editions since 1932 and I've tried to buy them for a long time. Enticed by the simple title, I've since decided to read them all as soon as I can own them. I think her "How Should One Read a Book?" is definitely worth reading and applying into our reading since we can learn a lot from its 13 pages and, definitely, few scholars can surpass her unique views, exposition and brilliance. For instance,

The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. (p. 258)

If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. Be his fellow-worker and accomplice. (p. 259)

The first process, to receive impressions with the utmost understanding, is only half the process of reading; it must be completed, if we are to get the whole pleasure from a book, by another.... But not directly. Wait for the dust of reading to settle; for the conflict and the questioning to die down; walk, talk, pull the dead petals from a rose, of all asleep. (p. 266)
etc.

I'd like to conclude this review by my note written at the essay's last sentence: i.e. loving reading is a reward itself!

[Sherwood Smith]

Here's the thing about Woolf. Even if you disagree with her (as I do over Chesterfield, for example), you can hold a mental conversation with her, and you sense that she will listen sympathetically. She's rarely snide, and never petty in these essays; she doesn't always have all the facts, and sometimes betrays the limitations of her time, but who doesn't?

One essay over breakfast is a wonderful way to begin the day.

[Eric Byrd · Rating 5 out of 5]

An ideal critic, humane and intimate reader. I like that these essays read like a lifelong reading journal; we get the moody responsiveness, the tactility of encounter. This book immediately conjures Virginia Stephen, the young girl educating herself in her father's library.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In her second tour de force in literary criticism, Woolf's collection of book reviews and essays upon authors and their failures and successes astounds the reader with her perceptive and sensitive reading of books and clear understanding of authors' personalities, ambitions, and histories. Each essay is moving in its own way, and as I read through the book I sometimes felt overwhelmed by Woolf's phrasing and poetic style. I could go on for pages, citing incidences of essays that moved me to tears, or angered me that a particular author that I find excellent is severely ridiculed by the critics of his/her day but there's just not enough space here for me to do so.

If you are a lover of books, British literature, literary criticism, and of course, the writing of Virginia Woolf, you must not pass up an opportunity to read this collection. In my opinion, it is more well-written that her first collection, "The Common Reader". You may be inspired, as I was, to find copies of some of the books reviewed here and read them, thus discovering new writers whose works you'll want to plunder. Yes, these are old books, some quite out of date with our times, but as a reader I find that these books offer new ideas about society and its changes, and better comprehension of human nature and its vagaries.

Go for it! You won''t regret reading this!

[Wilsonn]

What a mind as never is Virginia Woolf's!

[Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

In brief: a collection of essays on various topics relating to English literature, arranged in roughly chronological order with respect to their subjects, beginning with a general discussion of the difficulty of putting one's 20th century mind into the worldview of the Elizabethans, and ending, all but one, with "The Novels of Thomas Hardy."

These essays fit my definition of good criticism: they enrich my understanding of the texts I have read, or, in the majority which I haven't, entice me to read a good many of them. (I found myself ordering a few Kindle books while reading this; fortunately, most of this stuff is available in either cheap or free editions.)

Several of the essays are less about the works than about the life of the writer under discussion: for example, an essay on George Gissing goes into some details about how the misery of his own life led to the social criticism of his novels.

The final essay is on "How to Read a Book," and begins with the caveat that Woolf is _not_ going to tell the reader how to read a book, but, rather, give her some tips on things that have made _her_ reading deeper and more enjoyable. (My words, not hers.)

[A. Macbeth’s bks · Rating 2 out of 5]

The essay that stood out in my mind was Aurora Leigh, about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s nine volumes of blank verse about Aurora Leigh. VW’s exasperation with EBB’s bio was rather amusing.
I used to adore EBB’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, my having been a well-brought up anglophone girl.
Nevertheless, particularly since I loved VW’s fantasy, pet-animal novel Flush, ostensibly about EBB’s cocker-spaniel Flush, her constant companion during her life-long, unexplained neurasthenic condition, both in Wimpole Street, London, and out in Italy, I started looking into EBB’s bio more consistently.
Now I’m the frustrated one, about what scholars are saying about EBB and her family of origin. Don’t really know whether it’s justified or merely inappropriately applied, i.e. prejudiced and discriminatory, critical race theory and knee-jerk anti-colonialism or not. That she was of mixed race, to which her neurasthenia was her response, and her people were plantation slave-owners in the West Indies, from whence came the funds to support her lifestyle in that palace in Italy and her lounging around doing not much.
Mr. Browning must have led the exodus out to Italy to better deny and repress all those difficult, inconvenient truths, to forget the existence of England and the English, to live in Italian only, to the extent that their Italian-born son eventually flunked out of his Oxbridge university course for lack of sufficient mastery of the English language, his English being too broken.
But if you simply read EBB’s sonnets and forget their author, they’re still great.
Although I do believe that now in my golden years I may have lost my formerly strong belief in love and the romance of elopement and all that.

[Kanyimbe]

I like the essay called How To Read A Book

[Esther Hong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read about half of it. Good prose. Needs more paragraphing (or maybe it's just one of those Woolf things I don't get). Don't know majority of these people, but the observations and principles she draws out are interesting. Pure wit. But, alas, I have to return the book because it is overdue.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 3 out of 5]

I so wish I had read this in college so that I could have used the essays on the various authors with my older students. They are very well written. I know I’m nobody, but I was really impressed. She has such an astounding vocabulary.

[Răzvan Molea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woolf abordează problema prejudecăților pe care majoritatea cititorilor o au față de cărți; față de poezie – să fie falsă, față de autobiografii – să fie măgulitoare, față de proză – să fie adevărată (sau cel puțin să pară?), față de cărțile de istorie – să ne satisfacă vanitatea și simțul patriotic. Întotdeauna avem așteptări, de multe ori nejustificate, care strică toată experiența lecturii.

Soluția, afirmă Woolf, este să înlături bagajul de idei preconcepute și să accepți exact ceea ce are de oferit cartea respectivă. Fair enough, right? Doar că nu facem asta mereu (este o meteahnă de care sufăr și eu). Acesta ar fi un început bun.

Woolf susține că dacă n-ai încerca să te detașezi de carte și să-i cauți nod în papură la fiecare pas (ca atunci când vii cu idei preconcepute că e o carte proastă – că nu-ți place autorul, că ultima lui carte pe care ai citit-o te-a făcut să regreți că ai cumpărat-o, că nu-ți plac cărțile cât un dicționar, etc), să o critici, ci mai degrabă să devii ”complicele” autorului - adică să nu stăm deoparte. Căci dacă alegi să îți deschizi mintea, atunci semne și aluzii de o finețe aproape imperceptibilă, întoarceri de propoziții, te vor aduce în prezența unei minți deosebite. Cu toate acestea, este foarte dificil să ne afundăm propria identitate în ceea ce citim, rezonând cu sentimentele și emoțiile evocate în pagini. Oricât de mult ne-am strădui, nu putem să ne afundăm cu totul, fiindcă mereu va exista în noi acel demon care șoptește, ”I hate, I love”, și pe acesta nu-l putem reduce la tăcere.

Dacă prima parte a cititului îndeamnă cititorii să-și deschidă mintea la infinitatea de impresii subtile din pagină, atunci cea de-a doua este cea de a judeca, de a compara – sarcină deloc ușoară. Să continui să citești o carte fără să o ai în față, să fi citit considerabil și cu suficientă înțelegere de-a lungul timpului pentru a face comparații edificatoare și pertinente – asta e dificil; este, totuși, mult mai dificil să mergi mai departe și să spui:”Nu numai că romanul/poezia cutare e de felul ăsta, dar e și de felul ăsta; aici reușește, aici dă chix; asta-i bine; asta-i rău.” Pentru a reuși într-o astfel de sarcină, un cititor are nevoie de atât de multă imaginație, bună cunoaștere și cunoștințe, încât este greu de de conceput că cineva este într-atât de înzestrat pentru a o duce la capăt.

Woolf încheie astfel eseul:
”I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards – their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon impersihable marble – the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy and when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, ”Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.”

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title is self-explanatory. Not as engaging as the first volume. Three favorite essays from this book are "Aurora Leigh", a complete, not to say exhaustive, treatment of Elizabeth Browning's poem; "The Novels of Thomas Hardy", and "How Should One Read a Book?"
An interesting technique employed here: a book or the work of a particular author will be presented in a distinctly negative way, with appropriate evidence. Ms. Woolf then will reverse her position totally, and point out precisely why the work being considered is indeed worthwhile. I don't know it's a tour-de-force, a bit of showing off, or both. It's very well done, though, and engaging, in an odd sort of way.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my mind, these essays are about two types of authors. The authors I knew, I enjoyed and entertained the possibility of re-reading. The more obscure authors I became interested in reading. Such is the power of Mrs Woolf's pen. My to-be-read pile is horrendous.

[Shemaiah Gonzalez]

It is not only royalty who are allowed to use the royal “we” when addressing the masses, commoners are allowed too, especially if you are literary royalty such as Virginia Woolf. Woolf uses the royal “we” in her point of view right from the start in her essay, “ I am Christina Rossetti.” She says, “on the first of this December, Christina Rossetti will celebrate her centennial, or, more properly speaking, we shall celebrate it for her.” In using this royal we, Woolf draws the reader into the essay. We are culprits in this celebration and immediately want to know what is it we are celebrating? What makes Rossetti worth partying about? Woolf invites us along, “we shall read her life; we shall read her letter; we shall study her portraits, speculate about her diseases…and rattle the drawers of her writing-table.” Even if you had never heard of Christina Rossetti, you think to yourself, “why how enchanting! Yes, let’s do that.” By using that we, Woolf has us hooked and she knows it. She walks us over to peer into Mary F. Sandars biography on Rossetti and describes it to us as one looking into a curio box.

"Here is the past and all its inhabitants miraculously sealed as in a magic tank; all we have to do is to look and to listen and to listen and to look an soon the little figures-- where they are rather under life size will begin to move and to speak an as they move we shall arrange them and all sorts of patterns of which they were ignorant, for they thought when they were alive that they could go anywhere they liked; and as they speak we shall read into their sayings all kinds of meanings which never struck them for they believed when they were alive that they said straight off whatever came into their heads. But once you are in a biography all is different."

Woolf challenges us to look even closer at Rossetti. What we see is not all that is there. “Indeed if we look at her a little more closely we shall see that something dark and hard, like a kernel, had already formed in the center of Christina Rossetti's being.” Woolf tells us that it was Rossetti’s religion. Every angle in which she saw the world was threw the lens of her religion. “Everything in Christina's life radiated from that not of agony and intensity in the center.” By continuing to use the royal we, Woolf guides us to see this in Rossetti. It was the lens in which she chose which games to play, which art was holy and which men to love.

Woolf invites us again to peer into the curio box and pinpoints a moment when all changed for Rossetti. When at a tea party, someone made a “casual, frivolous remark about poetry.” Christina rose from her chair, paced and announced, “I am Christina Rossetti!” She was announcing herself as a poet. Standing up for herself. Woolf seems to say that in that moment, poetry becomes more of a lens in which she views the world than religion. Poetry has become her religion.

Woolf identifies with this and for the first time in the essay, uses the 1st person,

"Had I been present when …a short elderly woman in black risen to her feet and advanced to the middle of the room, I should certainly have committed some indiscretion have broken a paper-knife or smashed a tea-cup in the awkward ardor of my admiration when she said “I am Christina Rossetti!” "

Even though she has changed to 1st person, she still draws us in to identify with herself and Rossetti. We have become her confidants, her friends as we discovered Rossetti together. Had she continued to use we, the reader would have said to themselves, “No, I don’t believe I would have made a stink. Don’t tell me what I would have done.” Now we see how Woolf identifies with Rossetti and we look closer, at Woolf and at Rossetti.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only problem with this collection of essays is that if you're not familiar with the writers mentioned you get a bit bored. I can't deny Virginia Woolf's mastery of language though. No wonder I loved "Mrs. Dalloway" and "Orlando". She really can turn a phrase like few others can. I signed out this collection of essays for the final one called "How should one read a book?", but I found other interesting essays as well. I was only surprised I didn't care for the essay on Thomas Hardy, because I was familiar with his work, and really liked his work. Yet Woolf's essay about Hardy was dry, and I felt like she made a better impression on me when she wrote about women and women friendships. One of my favorite essays was titled "Geraldine and Jane", a female friendship and potential queer relationship that was recounted with wit and style. Probably the biggest issue for the modern reader is the paucity of details and references in some of the essays. It was difficult for me to follow those essays about less known authors in current times (and that ultimately led me to skip over some essays altogether). For all her insight, I found Woolf's essay on the history and fate of short stories in relation with class change, titled "The niece of an Earl" the be remarkably short sighted. From my understanding, Woolf considers that only in the middle class can one truly be a writer, for the overly rich and overly poor cannot truly capture their environment due to ignorance and (in the case of the rich) pride. So as the middle class becomes dominant, Woolf also predicts the death of the novel. The novel surely transformed, but now more fiction and non-fiction books are written then ever before.

Ultimately, the "How should one read a book?" was an interesting essay, but also not an informative one. It was beautiful, but decidedly vague. "Even if I could answer the question for myself, the answer would apply only to me and not to you. The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason to come to your own conclusions. (...) To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of these sanctuaries. At the same time, Woolf elevates critiques on a special pedestals and warns that it's impossible "even after a lifetime of reading , to make any valuable contributions to its criticism. We must remain readers; we shall not put on the further glory what belongs to those rare beings who are also critics." But don't be so quick to shut down dissenting opinions, impassioned book readers. Before you troll someone whose review you dislike on Goodreads, remember that the opinion of readers does matter, for "behind the erratic gunfire of the press the author felt that there was another kind of criticism, the opinion of people reading for the love of reading, slowly an unprofessionally, and judging with great sympathy an yet with great severity, might this not improve the quality of his work? And if by our means books were to become stronger, richer, and more varied, that could be an end worth reaching."

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a review of two books, Virginia Woolf's The Second Common Reader and Martin Amis' The War Against Cliche

These two books, which form a set of bookends for 20th-century literary criticism, have similar shortcomings. On the one hand, we have Virginia Woolf, whose essays call for an appreciation of those writers who practiced their craft in an age permeated with class distinctions; tellingly, she admits she has trouble foreseeing the prospect of writers working in an age where there is a true a democratic politics which abjures class privilege. On the other hand, we have Martin Amis, who scribbles about writers for whom sex is not about procreation, but the extension of privilege. It seems to me that the gender-bound class-distinctions of Woolf's criticism, in the early 20th century, was mutated, by the end of the century, into Amis' writing, which descends into college-educated toilet-reading for the busy newspeak professional. Ostensibly, these authors are both good writers, but I would not be surprised if these two books are eventually swept into the trash bin of history as a result of what is predicted to be the rising dominance of machines controlled by artificial intelligence where, due to the catholicity of the patterns it learns in its digital training and the textual manifestations of its neural networks, books such as these (and the viewpoints of the writers themselves) come to be in a position of great peril. Specifically, I have a dim view of the prospects for a future society where literacy is promulgated, effectively transmitted and produced in such an "on-demand" fashion; perhaps literature will someday even be created by machines. It seems to me to be highly dubious whether such a society will be able to instill its citizens, individuals who have never developed a literary consciousness, the intellectual will that is necessary to read books like these in our coming world, much less write them. The fact that these books are so severely "dated" as the result of advances in technology, advances that render the mode of reading them critically obsolete, gives additional weight to the argument that the future will be one marked by a diminishing range of choices rather than a utopia of limitless possibility. Read these books, or others like them, while you still can. Three stars.

[Samuel Maina · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the second collection of articles by Virginia Woolf, I was under the impression that she was big on Victorian writing. The Elizabethan age is distinct and pungent in all her articles collection. Some notable authors make a comeback here and when someone appears twice in two collections we have to pay attention.

I see Virginia Woolf loved reading Autobiographies, especially with an aim to learn what influences people had in their lives. It is easier to learn from someone’s life through their experiences and the learnings made from their mistakes.

Letter writing seems to have been a form of occupation back then. People knew how to communicate better back then through writing than we do nowadays with the advance in technology. Plain old letter writing was a great tool for communication.

The leaning towards poetry is unmistakable. This collection made me feel like I need to revisit all Thomas Hardy, William Hazlitt and George Meredith books. Not forgetting Elizabeth Barrett Browning

On how to read a book, that write up basically opened a can of worms. It was the intention of that article top make the reader query the mind of the writer and not be quick to make judgments and or compare books by different writers. While we must be forced to compare, compare good books with good books at the very least.

I would also like to know more about George Gissing

The Times literary supplement, Life and Letters, The Nation, Vogue, The New York Herald, The Yale Review, and Figaro seemed to have good articles back then. I hope they still do.

A worthy read.

[Kristy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second collection of literary essays published by Woolf during her lifetime, these 26 pieces take the reader into Woolf's entertaining reflections on famous writers, forgotten historical figures, literary criticism, and (in the most famous essay in the collection), the question of "How Should One Read a Book?" Through it all, Woolf's humor, sharp eye, and love of all types and eras of writing shine through. You won't know the writing or writers or historical figures that half of these essays are about, but that won't matter one bit. Woolf's writing is so compelling that it can carry any topic gracefully. I don't know that the English-speaking world has ever seen a better reader than Woolf (excepting, perhaps, Samuel Johnson, who inspired her title for these volumes), and how the heck she was able to read so much (and write so perfectly about her reading), while ALSO writing some of the best novels of all time is truly a mystery. If you want a taste beyond "How Should One Read a Book?," google around for "Dr. Burney's Evening Party" and "Jack Mytton," two of my faves in the collection. 🐌

[Paulo Bugalho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dê por onde der, este segundo volume não tem a inteireza do primeiro, nem se lê com o gosto redentor próprio da grande literatura, esse que justifica plenamente o uso de tempo existencial, que compensa a criação desses parênteses no curso do tempo, o hiato nunca recuperado. Há nele muito do que imaginamos ser somente o treino, o partir pedra necessário ao desenho de toda a boa ficção. Demoradas incursões em diários, cartas, muita literatura de segunda ordem, indica-nos que aquilo que é nutritivo para o escritor não tem de sê-lo para o leitor: não é o combustível que nos interessa estudar, apenas rejubilar com o avanço do motor. Junta-se a este volume o ser muito mais inglês que o primeiro, tanto menos interessante quanto mais detalhado sobre obras especificamente importantes para a história britânica e menos relevantes no panorama geral. Ainda assim o volume acaba dobrado em várias pontas de páginas, e fotografado para as redes nalguns dias, pelo que será justo concluir que inclua algumas iluminações.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The essays in the second Common Reader can roughly be split into two categories – essays where Woolf comments on particular works of literature and essays where she looks closer at the lives of authors. It happens a lot, of course, that the two intermingle. You can’t have a book without its author or an author without their oeuvre.  

My favourite essay of the volume remains ‘How Should One Read a Book?’, but there are some others which pulled me back into reading them three or four times. ‘The Strange Elizabethans’ rummages among the letters of 16th century writer Gabriel Harvey and imagines a vivid and colourful image of his sister, a milkmaid who refuses to give it to the advances of a high lord. ‘Swift’s journal to Stella’ comments on the correspondence of 16th century writer Jonathan Swift with Esther Johnson, his close friend, possible secret wife. The point about many of Woolf’s essays is that she starts off with the name of a prominent man of letters and narrows down the perspective to the women in his life. 


https://leseriana.blog/2024/07/20/vir...

[Cindy Pao · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book if you're doing research for a paper on English literature - and I sure wish I knew about it when I was working on my degree.

I really enjoyed reading Virginia's essays about various English authors.

[Adam Gossman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite

[Cary Boswell · Rating 5 out of 5]

She is an amazing writer and critic. Insightful analyses of British writers.

[Maddie Pieper · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

maybe one day i can write an essay 1/8 as good as some of these. we'll see

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great collection of essays on English literature, including many figures I had not heard of.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't been reading a lot of essays recently, and typically what I would read in that vein these days are more the longer form newspaper or magazine articles that usually look at contemporary events and topics. The closest to The Common Readers in what I usually read would be the essays in the London Review of Books, my subscription to which I let lapse primarily due to a lack of time. However, reading the essays in particular in Volume II has sparked a renewed interest for me in that form of writing; not just in reading more contemporary essay writing but also looking back at some renowned essay writers like Montaigne and Addison.

I found that Volume II had a much more coherent sense of a consistent thread compared to the First. The focus was clearly on English literature, as it was in Volume I, but Volume II went more clearly not just from early English writers - starting looking at the Elizabethans - but through common associations, using stepping stones of time and place and relationships between writers. The effect given is to provide clarity to the interconnected nature of the writing world, of influences and contemporaries, and of how they can shape either either. So when Woolf writes about Donne, she also mentions Spenser and Sidney after covering them in relationship and comparison to Gabriel Harvey in the previous essay, before looking at Sidney more closely in the following essay on Arcadia. Then the essay on Defoe starts immediately with a reference to Sidney's death and Arcadia, and Donne serves to illustrate an example in the essay on Dorothy Osborne. So follows through the rest of the collection, providing a great sense of not just reading a grab-bag of essays on figures in English literature, but ones carefully chosen to span from the 16th century to the early 20th through an unbroken series of links. This was no doubt helped by the fact that the first three essays were written for and published for the first time in this collection (along with the essay on 'De Quincey's Autobiography' midway through).

The essays in Volume I occasionally feel incomplete - like they end abruptly - and perhaps that they don't necessarily have a clear goal in mind behind each. They can feel occasionally like a surface exploration of an author or a novel that don't reach out enough to fill out the background to place it fully in context, or a vehicle to illustrate a not quite overt or fully formed point. In contrast, in Volume II each essay draws a complete picture of the writer or writers covered. A number of the essays cover memoirs or letters, and Woolf uses these as a basis to build a view into the time period, the writer's life and relationships, and the landscape of English literature at that time.

In one way - and perhaps this is entirely superficial - Volume II reminded me of Orlando: the span of time covered, the window into the evolution of English life. The beauty of the prose, of course, which certainly cannot be taken for granted, also helps reinforce the comparison.

The two more generalist essays - 'The Niece of an Earl' and 'How Should One Read A Book?' - are particularly interesting in providing context for the critical understanding of English literature, looking in the first at class and its impact throughout on what an novelist can convincingly tackle, and in the second at what the reader should bring to the table in order to fully appreciate what they are reading. They both end on great notes, with a question (particularly now we can look back nearly a century in the light of what has happened since) on where English novel writing will go as class evolves through a democratic age, and with a beautiful dream for readers:

I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards - their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble - the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, 'Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.'

[David Gross · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hadn't read any Virginia Woolf until earlier this year, when I enjoyed The Lighthouse. That encouraged me to pick up this paperback at a library booksale. One of the things that I found very attractive about The Lighthouse also applies to this book of critical essays: even when Woolf does not like a character (or an author), she cares about him or her and tries to faithfully and patiently carve for herself the mask that character (or author) looks through to see and make sense of the world, then tries it on herself and shows us how the world looks through those eyes.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This time, my favorites were the essays on Arcadia and on Fanny Burney. Woolf brilliant captures the mingled fascination and dismay of picking up Sidney's hefty, intricate, and purpley-prosed romance. The Burney essay sympathetically highlight's Burney's inventive love of words, and the last anecdote reads like a short story.