"Orlando" is a fictional biography of a person called Orlando who lives over three hundred years from Queen Elizabeth's reign in the sixteenth century through to King Edwards reign in 1928, the year Virginia Woolf wrote the novel. In the beginning of the book Orlando is a nobleman who has literary ambitions. As a man he writes plays and poems every day of his life while courting some of his generation's most beautiful women. Everything changes when he turns into woman, and for the remainder, Woolf draws comparisons between the thought processes of men and women across the different eras...
Few writers are as illustrative and defining of their time as Virginia Woolf. Using her distinct style of narration and poetic language, Woolf produced some of the most influential novels of the first half of the twentieth century.
In addition to her innovative art, Woolf was also known for her struggles with depression and her relationships with some of the most important intellectuals of her time. Many critics have attempted to understand Woolf's work through her life experience.
One particularly important encounter was her love affair with Vita Sackville-West. In fact, the encounter so impacted Woolf that it inspired her to write the semi-autobiographical "Orlando" about her experience. The novel is one of her most accessible works and remains one of her most popular writings. Despite her literary success, Woolf battled debilitating panic attacks and mental illness throughout her life, and in 1941 committed suicide, leaving behind nine novels and dozens of essays and short stories.
