To the Lighthouse: The First-Edition Text with the Author's Revisions
May 2027 · New York Review of Books
Ebook
224
Pages
Tools
info
family_home
Eligible
info
infoThis book will become available on May 4, 2027. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
A new centennial edition of Virginia Woolf’s finest novel—a story about life and death, time and perception, family and the self—that incorporates all of the author's corrections and revisions to the text.
To the Lighthouse, whose centenary falls in 2027, is widely viewed as the greatest novel by Virgina Woolf, one of greatest, and most beloved, of the great English novelists. It is a tale of youth and age, of disappointment and revelation, of life and death, whose pages are imbued with an extraordinary sensitivity to the lonely particularities of the self and to the complicated dynamics of family life, combined with a rich attention to the world of the senses and a supple style that is a form of intelligence itself.
Extraordinary, it is also a perfectly ordinary tale, about a big family messing around on vacation, about being little and crushed by not getting what you want, and being old and uncertain what it is, if anything, that you have got. The book encompasses the long summery suspension of the era World War I brought to a bloody end, the losses, personal and public, the war brought, and the struggle in its aftermath to put life back together in a way perhaps less destructive to body and heart and soul. It is a book about the passage of time, the stab of love, and the life of art. Few books have it in them to capture the unremitting wonder of what it is to be at loss and at large in the world. None does it with the precision and poignance of To the Lighthouse.
This new edition of To the Lighthouse, edited by Edward Mendelson, is the only one to include all of Virginia Woolf's corrections and revisions to the text, including one important one that she made for the first French translation. Unlike all other editions published in North America, it is based on the revised text that she prepared for the first British edition, not the earlier and less revised text in the first American edition. Part of NYRB Classics's ongoing new edition of Woolf's major works, it will be followed in 2028 by Mendelson's edition of The Waves.
To the Lighthouse, whose centenary falls in 2027, is widely viewed as the greatest novel by Virgina Woolf, one of greatest, and most beloved, of the great English novelists. It is a tale of youth and age, of disappointment and revelation, of life and death, whose pages are imbued with an extraordinary sensitivity to the lonely particularities of the self and to the complicated dynamics of family life, combined with a rich attention to the world of the senses and a supple style that is a form of intelligence itself.
Extraordinary, it is also a perfectly ordinary tale, about a big family messing around on vacation, about being little and crushed by not getting what you want, and being old and uncertain what it is, if anything, that you have got. The book encompasses the long summery suspension of the era World War I brought to a bloody end, the losses, personal and public, the war brought, and the struggle in its aftermath to put life back together in a way perhaps less destructive to body and heart and soul. It is a book about the passage of time, the stab of love, and the life of art. Few books have it in them to capture the unremitting wonder of what it is to be at loss and at large in the world. None does it with the precision and poignance of To the Lighthouse.
This new edition of To the Lighthouse, edited by Edward Mendelson, is the only one to include all of Virginia Woolf's corrections and revisions to the text, including one important one that she made for the first French translation. Unlike all other editions published in North America, it is based on the revised text that she prepared for the first British edition, not the earlier and less revised text in the first American edition. Part of NYRB Classics's ongoing new edition of Woolf's major works, it will be followed in 2028 by Mendelson's edition of The Waves.
A new centennial edition of Virginia Woolf’s finest novel—a story about life and death, time and perception, family and the self—that incorporates all of the author's corrections and revisions to the text.
To the Lighthouse, whose centenary falls in 2027, is widely viewed as the greatest novel b...
Discover more
About the author
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was an English novelist, critic, and publisher who became a key figure of literary modernism. She was the author of many novels, among them Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, and The Waves, as well as several works of nonfiction and criticism, including the influential feminist essay A Room of One’s Own.
Edward Mendelson is the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. His books include The Inner Life of Mrs. Dalloway; The Things That Matter; Early Auden, Later Auden; and Moral Agents: Eight Twentieth-Century American Writers (New York Review Books). He edited the centennial edition of Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway published by NYRB Classics in 2025.
Edward Mendelson is the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. His books include The Inner Life of Mrs. Dalloway; The Things That Matter; Early Auden, Later Auden; and Moral Agents: Eight Twentieth-Century American Writers (New York Review Books). He edited the centennial edition of Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway published by NYRB Classics in 2025.
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was an English novelist, critic, and publisher who became a key figure of literary modernism. She was the author of many novels, among them Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, and The Waves, as well as several works of nonfiction and criticism, including the infl...
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
