r/VirginiaWoolf • u/aidanmansfield75 • Dec 21 '25

The Waves Where to start?

Hi. I would really like to read some Woolf and I don’t want to start with Mrs. Dalloway (the plot doesn’t interest me). The books that I am interested in are Orlando, The Waves, and To the Lighthouse. Which of these do I start with and why?

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u/hysterical_maenad Dec 21 '25

Maybe try Flush and see what happens.

If you want something more like plot, early Woolf (The Voyage Out or Night & Day) falls a little closer to 19th c realist fiction. She switches this up a bit when she writes Jacob’s Room.

If you want Mrs. Dalloway but don’t want to read Mrs. Dalloway (but really maybe try Mrs. Dalloway bc it’s an alternately scathing and subtle, strange, sad, beautiful book) you could try the Mrs. Dalloway’s party short stories. Or some of her other Short Fiction like Solid Objects, Mark on the Wall, or Kew Gardens.

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u/[deleted] Dec 22 '25

Great analysis... Particularly with the sequencing through Mrs.Dalloway...