Other editions of book Between the Acts - A Novel - Including a Short Biography of the Author

“Love. Hate. Peace. Three emotions made the ply of human life.”Between the Acts takes place on a June day in 1939 at Pointz Hall, the Oliver family’s country house in the heart of England. In the garden, everyone from the village has gathered to present the annual pageant—scenes from the history of England starting with the Middle Ages. As the story of England unfolds, the lives of the villagers also take shape. The past blends with the present and art blends with life in a narrative full of invention, affection, and lyricism. Through her characters' passionate musings and private dramas, and through the enigmatic figure of the pageant's author, Miss La Trobe, Virginia Woolf's final novel both celebrates and mocks Englishness. Even so, the coming of war looms over the whole community, heralding a new act.

The author's last novel, written during the early years of World War II, was completed just before her death. The action takes place on a single summer's day at a country house, Pointz Hall, in the heart of England. In the garden the villagers are presenting their annual pageant - on this occasion scenes from English history up to and including "ourselves, " the audience, in June 1939. During the interludes the inhabitants of Pointz Hall, the Olivers, their guests, and the villagers have tea, stroll, and talk. There is an intense interplay among the unhappy Isa Oliver, her handsome husband, Giles, whom she loves and hates, and a guest, Mrs. Manresa, who is pursuing him. A storm interrupts the final tableau, and the pageant comes to an end. The performers and the audience depart to resume their ordinary lives and Isa and Giles to confront each other.

Between the Acts is the final novel by Virginia Woolf. It was published shortly after her suicide in 1941.The novel takes place as a festival play is being mounted and preformed in a small English town. Many of the themes and techniques from her former novels are carried into this one. It's set in pre-World War II and themes of the war are throughout. A particularly interesting technique being the use of rhyme words to suggest hidden meanings. Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, 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." Look for more classic books from Green Light. Visit us at - GreenLighteBooks.tumblr.comTwitter - @GreenLightbooks and facebook.com/greenlightbooks

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)

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Virginia Woolf's extraordinary last novel, Between the Acts, was published in July 1941. In the weeks before she died in March that year, Woolf wrote that she planned to continue revising the book and that it was not ready for publication. Her husband prepared the work for publication after her death, and his revisions have become part of the text now widely read by students and scholars. Unlike most previous editions, the Cambridge edition returns to the final version of the novel as Woolf left it, examining the stages of composition and publication. Using the final typescript as a guide, this edition fully collates all variants and thus accounts for all the editorial decisions made by Leonard Woolf for the first published edition. 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.

Virginia Woolf's last novel, in equal parts a triumphant celebration and witty mockery of 'Englishness', Between the Acts is edited by Stella McNichol, with an introduction and notes by Gillian Beer in Penguin Modern Classics. Outwardly a novel about life in a country house in whose grounds there is to be a pageant, Between the Acts is also a striking evocation of English experience in the months leading up to the Second World War. Through dialogue, humour and the passionate musings of the characters, Virginia Woolf explores how a community is formed (and scattered) over time. The tableau, a series of scenes from English history, and the private dramas that go on between the acts are closely interlinked. Through the figure of Miss La Trobe, author of the pageant, Virginia Woolf questions imperialist assumptions and, at the same time, re-creates the elusive role of the artist. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is regarded as a major 20th century author and essayist, a key figure in literary history as a feminist and modernist, and the centre of 'The Bloomsbury Group'. This informal collective of artists and writers which included Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry, exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture. Between 1925 and 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces, from Mrs Dalloway (1925) to the poetic and highly experimental novel The Waves (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism, short fiction, journalism and biography, including the playfully subversive Orlando (1928) and A Room of One's Own (1929) a passionate feminist essay. If you enjoyed Between the Acts, you might like Woolf's The Waves, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'A powerful and prophetic statement' Richard Shone, The Times

This extensively annotated edition of Virgina Woolf’s last novel is based on the text of the first English edition, emended on the basis of a comparison of it with her final typescript. Represents an authoritative new edition of one of Virgina Woolf’s most challenging and subtle books, and the first of her books to be published posthumously. Features the text of the first English edition of Between the Acts, emended on the basis of a comparison of it with Woolf’s final typescript . Contains an introduction and extensive notes, which demonstrate that in writing the book, Woolf drew upon a capacious memory filled by a lifetime of reading, writing, listening and observing. Forms part of the prestigious Shakespeare Head Press series of Woolf's works.