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by: Virginia Woolf  List Price: $14.00 Amazon.com's Price: $11.20 You Save: $2.80 (20%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 823.912 EAN: 9780156701600 ISBN: 015670160X Label: Harvest Books Manufacturer: Harvest Books Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 352 Publication Date: October 24, 1973 Publisher: Harvest Books Studio: Harvest Books Related Items: Alternate Versions: Click to Display Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: In 1928, way before everyone else was talking about gender-bending and way, way before the terrific movie with Tilda Swinton, Virginia Woolf wrote her comic masterpiece, a fantastic, fanciful love letter disguised as a biography, to Vita Sackville-West. Orlando enters the book as an Elizabethan nobleman and leaves the book three centuries and one change of gender later as a liberated woman of the 1920s. Along the way this most rambunctious of Woolf's characters engages in sword fights, trades barbs with 18th century wits, has a baby, and drives a car. This is a deliriously written, breathless-making book and a classic both of lesbian literature and the Western canon. Product Description: In her most exuberant, most fanciful novel, Woolf has created a character liberated from the restraints of time and sex. Born in the Elizabethan Age to wealth and position, Orlando is a young nobleman at the beginning of the story-and a modern woman three centuries later. “A poetic masterpiece of the first rank” (Rebecca West). The source of a critically acclaimed 1993 feature film directed by Sally Potter. Index; illustrations. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - 4.5 out of 5: Sexuality through the agesThe story begins with Orlando as a passionate young nobleman in Queen Elizabeth's court. By the end, Orlando is a 36-year-old woman three centuries later. Orlando witnesses the making of history from its edge. A close examination of the nature of sexuality and the changing climate of the passing centuries. Very novel and engaging if a bit loose-ended at times. Rating:  - Milord! Milady!This `roman à clés' is very original. The hero continues to live in different historical periods and undergoes a sex change. However, it is written in an emotional, sentimental, superlative style: `society in the reign of Queen Anne was of unparalleled brilliance. The graces were supreme.' Except for the first period, there are no conflicts, only rather superficial descriptions of the mood and spirits of the times. For V. Woolf, `to give a truthful account of society ... only those ... Read More Rating: - This Book is Still Hip -- Hard to Believe Written and Published in 1928 Edwardian England [63]Written in 1928, this book clearly sought to shock the reading public. For every repression delivered by Victorian authorities which surely hampered Woolf's freedoms, this book delivers a defiant rebuke to the same. Orlando - it states in the beginning - is a man for whom "there can be no doubt of his sex." He is rich, handsome and lives a life even Hugh Hefner may be jealous of. But, scandals lead him to isolation, to public ridicule or upbraiding, which led him to sequester himself ... Read More Rating:  - As Only Virginia Woolf Could WriteI like to think myself a very well-rounded reader (I have my degree in English), but I don't know if the genius of Virginia Woolf was just beyond me in Orlando. I enjoyed the story and the various historical characters that made appearances throughout, but something about it went a bit over my head. It was a strange tale of adventure and romance, with Orlando seeking the beauties of life and poetry throughout the centuries. Rating: - A zany tour through English history based on a houseI read Orlando because someone told me that a central theme was Knole, the massive great house of the Sackvilles in Sevenoaks, in Kent south west of London. (I also liked Mrs Dalloway--See my Amazon review.) When we lived in London my family and I spent a day at Knole. It is supposedly the largest private house in England. Much of it now belongs to the National Trust. Knole beggars description--it is a vast mansion, brooding, and dark, but also eminent; it is a castle, a factory, mills, breweries, ... Read More 
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