One hundred years after the publication of Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, Mark Hussey and Kaye Mitchell discuss this iconic book.

One hundred years after the publication of Mrs Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, Mark Hussey and Kaye Mitchell discuss this iconic book. The fourth and best-known of Virginia Woolf’s novels, Mrs Dalloway is a modernist masterpiece that has remained popular since its publication in 1925.

Its dual narratives follow a day in the life of wealthy housewife Clarissa Dalloway and shell-shocked war veteran Septimus Warren Smith, capturing their inner worlds with a vividness that has rarely been equalled.

Mark’s new book Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a novel offers new readers a lively introduction to this enduring classic, while providing Woolf lovers with a wealth of information about the novel’s writing, publication and reception. It follows Woolf’s process from the first stirrings in her diary through her struggles to create what was quickly recognised as a major advance in prose fiction. It then traces the novel’s remarkable legacy to the present day.

Woolf wrote in her diary that she wanted her novel ‘to give life & death, sanity & insanity. to criticise the social system, & to show it at work, at its most intense.’ Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a novel reveals how she achieved this ambition, creating a book that will be read by generations to come.

Mark Hussey
Mark Hussey is Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Pace University in New York and a leading expert on Virginia Woolf. He he is founding editor of Woolf Studies Annual and general editor of the Harcourt Annotated Edition of the Works of Virginia Woolf, for which he edited To the Lighthouse. His recent publications include Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism (2022) and Modernism’s Print Cultures (with Faye Hammill, 2016).

Kaye Mitchell
Kaye Mitchell is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Literature and Co-Director of the Centre for New Writing at Manchester University. She is a literary and cultural critic with particular interests in modern and contemporary literature, literary theory, gender and sexuality studies, and experimental writing by women. Kaye Mitchell’s research is mainly in contemporary literature and culture, with a particular focus on gender and sexuality, critical theory and narratology. Following a BA English Literature (QMUL) and MA Philosophy (Birkbeck), she completed a PhD at Birkbeck which examined diverse theories of intention, literary meaning and authorship. A book based on her thesis was published on Continuum in 2008. She then taught for several years at the University of Westminster, before joining The University of Manchester in 2007.

Practical Information
The talk includes a Q&A session and light refreshments can be purchased from the venue’s bar.
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The venue is wheelchair accessible with an accessible toilet on the ground floor. Please contact us regarding any specific accessibility requirements you may have by emailing events@manlitphil.ac.uk