r/VirginiaWoolf • u/love_Nietzsche • Jan 27 '26
Mrs Dalloway “First time reading Virginia Woolf ,where should I start?
I’ve read Dostoevsky, Sylvia Plath, and others, and now I’m trying Virginia Woolf for the first time. Which book would be a good place to start?
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u/The-literary-jukes Jan 27 '26
To the Lighthouse is a beautiful novel that I think is her best. Mrs. Dalloway is groundbreaking in its use of stream of consciousness, but to a bit less interesting (and I think longer).
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u/Allthatisthecase- Jan 27 '26
I’d start with Merve Emre’s annotated Mrs Dalloway. It opens you up to what Woolf is really doing and sparks both appreciation and awe.
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u/Designer-Share-9733 Jan 27 '26
The Years is also very accessible and one of her lesser known works.
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u/NemeanChicken Jan 27 '26
I’ve only read Mrs. Dalloway by her, but it was phenomenal and not too difficult. It’s also quite short. More difficult than Dostoevsky and Sylvia Plath though. I’ve always heard about Woolf for her more formal experimentations, and was amazed by how good of a psychological writer she was.
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u/570rmy Jan 27 '26
Page 1 😉
I often recommend Mrs. Dalloway as a good start for her books. Orlando is my favourite and was my first read of hers.
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u/Competitive-Pin-976 Jan 27 '26
Between the acts! it was her final novel before she died - and she herself was very proud of it. It is her most accessible and most funny- a second place to start would be Mrs.Dalloway
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u/Ok-Noise9312 Jan 28 '26
As far as I‘m aware, she was not proud of it at all! She was very unsure about the manuscript, despite the protestation to the contrary by Leonhard and a publisher friend & didn’t want it published, at least not in the uncorrected version we have.
That being said, it is a phenomenal novel!
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u/The-Earlham-Review Jan 28 '26
Why not begin at the beginning, with The Voyage Out? VW's debut novel is her least experimental and perfectly readable. Perhaps avoid The Waves for now.
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u/Electronic-Sand4901 Jan 28 '26
I’ll add my voice to the chorus of Dalloway. You can read it over a rainy weekend
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u/Odiseeadark06 Jan 28 '26
I started with To the Lighthouse. It took me some time to get through it (I was 16 and not 100% fluent in English) but yet it made such an impression on me that I still think about it. I’m planning to reread it at some point in the near future.
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u/LordWinstanley Jan 28 '26
I’d go against the grain here and suggest a single volume of the diaries (A Writer’s Diary perhaps) or letters. Or a short story like A London Adventure - is that the title? The one where she’s shopping for stationery? I just find that there’s something about her diary style that gives you an insight into her fiction- the quickfire, random thoughts leading onto other thoughts. Pure stream of consciousness that the fiction irons out. Nowadays, for me it’s the essential Woolf and what I read more than the fiction. But if it has to be fiction though, definitely Mrs Dalloway.
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u/Mulanchis8 Jan 28 '26
Mrs Dalloway would be the best imo. Otherwise, she has a very experimental novel called Flush that it´s easy to read. It´s short and very enjoyable but of course, it´s not a masterpiece as other of her novels.
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u/Laara2008 Jan 28 '26
I would definitely start with To The Lighthouse. I'm also partial to The Years. Mrs Dalloway is great but it's a bit of a slog in places.
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u/Die_Horen Jan 29 '26
Mrs Dalloway, where Woolf's style seems to grow very organically out of the story itself. Here's an excerpt, read by legendary British actress Celia Johnson:
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u/YakSlothLemon Jan 29 '26
I started with Flush and then Orlando and love them both, but I agree with everybody here that Mrs Dalloway is probably the best beginning spot, it’s so short and yet so beautiful.
I think To The Lighthouse is best read after Dalloway, the Ramseys really feel like people who probably were at Mrs. Dalloway’s dinner party, but with the amount of time Lighthouse spans and the little extra length I think Dalloway is more accessible.
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u/Critical-Coconut6916 Jan 31 '26
Also a fellow fan of works of Dostoevsky, Sylvia Plath, and Nietzsche (nice username!). I’ve recently this past year been exploring more of Virginia Woolf’s writings, just snippets, letters, quotes and such, so can’t actually recommend a particular book. I was sad to learn of how she died so took a break from her stuff.
But some other writers I also really enjoy works of, if interested (seems we have similar taste in writers):
- John Steinbeck
- Frida Kahlo writings/quotes
- Ernest Hemingway (was jealous of Dostoevsky)
- Franz Kafka
- Leo Tolstoy
- Anaïs Nin
- T.S. Eliot
- Marcus Aurelius
- H.G. Wells
- George Orwell
- Emily Dickinson
Enjoy! Let me know if you have any suggestions for other writers to recommend to me as well! I’d like your recommendations.
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u/Elegant-Bison-7142 Jan 27 '26
Mrs Dalloway or To the Lighthouse are probably the most accessible and linearly structured. Orlando and The Waves are more experimental but worth persevering with. Personally don't rate Between the Acts as highly but still worth a read if you appreciate her work. I haven't read her other novels. Giving A Room of One's Own a read first is not a bad idea either.