Orlando

Virginia Woolf, Sandra Gilbert

From Shelf: Overheard on BBC Radio 4 Open Book Sunday 29 Aug & Thurs 2 Sept 2021

A gorgeous clothbound edition of Woolf's fantastical and enchanting novel, designed by the acclaimed Coralie-Bickford Smith. Orlando has always been an outsider...His longing for passion, adventure and fulfilment takes him out of his own time. Chasing a dream through the centuries, he bounds from Elizabethan England and imperial Turkey to the modern world. Will he find happiness with the exotic Russian Princess Sasha? Or is the dashing explorer Shelmerdine the ideal man? And what form will Orlando take on the journey - a nobleman, traveller, writer? Man or... woman?A wry commentary on gender and history, Orlando is also, in Woolf's own words, a light-hearted 'writer's holiday' which delights in ambiguity and capriciousness. This clothbound Penguin edition is edited by Brenda Lyons with an introduction and notes by Sandra M. Gilbert. 'I read this book and believed it was a hallucinogenic, interactive biography of my own life and future'Tilda Swinton