The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf

by Virginia Woolf

Readers of Virginia Woolf will enjoy this compilation of short stories, ordered chronologically to highlight Woolf’s different creative periods.

Woolf continually used stories and sketches to experiment with narrative models and themes for her novels. This collection of nearly fifty pieces brings together the contents of two published volumes, A Haunted House and Mrs. Dalloway’s Party; a number of uncollected stories; and several previously unpublished pieces. Edited and with an Introduction by Susan Dick.

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Literature, Literary Fiction, British Literature, 20th Century

345 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 1989

About the author

(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Reviews

[Ehsan'Shokraie' · Rating 4 out of 5]

"زندگی یک رشته لامپ نیست که به ترتیب ردیف شده باشد,بلکه پرتوی نورانی است,پوششی نیمه شفاف که ما را از زمان شروع ضمیر ناخوداگاه تا پایان در خود گرفته است."

لکه روی دیوار شاهکار ویرجینیا وولف است,نوشته ای که از زمان میگذرد..نوشته که زمان هرگز نخواهد توانست بر ان غلبه کند.

زمانی که این نوشته ها را میخوانم مرا به سال ها پیش باز میگرداند..به لحظاتی که بر فراز تپه هایی سبز در نزدیکی شهر زادگاهم می ایستادم..گرمای خورشید چون اغوش مادرم مرا در برمیگرفت...و باد...که عاشقانه دست سرشار از لطافتش را بر چهره ام میکشید..و پرواز پرندگان که افکارم را سوار بر بال های زنده و گرمشان به اسمان میبرد..آسمان آبی..شفاف و پاک..که افکارم در آن همیشه به مقصد می رسیدند..
دی ماه 98.

"زندگی همانی ست که شما در چشم های مردم میبینید؛زندگی همانی است که انها می اموزندو پس از انکه اموختند,گرچه می کوشند که پنهانش کنند,هرگز نمی توانند انکارش کنند.."

[Roman Clodia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something has dissolved my face. Through the mist of silver candle light it scarcely appears. People pass me without seeing me. They have faces. In their faces the stars seem to shine through rose coloured flesh.

There are various editions of Woolf's stories and they seem to have been combined here on GoodReads so, for clarity, I'm reviewing the Vintage A Haunted House: The Complete Shorter Fiction with the apposite cover design of fragile pink blossom in a shaft of sunlight.

I say apposite because there's something ethereal and impressionistic about most of these pieces, which also tend to defy the usual definitions of 'story'. These are generally plot-free though there may be movement internally and externally so they're certainly not static or precious. Woolf seems to be using them as palate cleansers and places of experimentation, trying out the techniques she was always struggling with and honing through all her writing: how to capture the ephemerality of moments of life; how to express consciousness and its fleetingness; how to articulate the sensual ways in which we experience the world, and the subjectivity that colours everything.

There are commonalities throughout: the vivid use of colour and light (did that come from Vanessa's art?), the concern with time and how to catch its progress through the mind of those experiencing it individually, the inner experience of living in a social world and the split selves that are created. There are continued uses of mirrors and reflections, often in water, as devices to catch personal alienation and fractured selves. There are moments of intense beauty, and strange perspectives: the snail in 'Kew Gardens', for example, or the well-anthologised mind-drift of 'The Mark on the Wall.' More than the novels, these pieces make clear the synchronicities between Woolf and Katherine Mansfield.

The collected Dalloway pieces are here, intersecting with both her eponymous book and also the first disconcerting appearances of Clarissa and Richard in The Voyage Out.

Are these 'stories' places to meet Woolf for the first time? I'd say not. These pieces can feel like writing exercises and moments of play - they are free-form and inconclusive. They seem to provide a kind of literary playground for Woolf, offering a freedom of form and from narrative structuring. They are limitless.

As such, this is a glorious collection for Woolf devotees both to feel a sense of her stretching and flying beyond the constraints of the novel, and for dipping into when only a little Woolf will do.

[Celeste Corrêa · Rating 4 out of 5]

De 11 de Setembro a 24 de Novembro de 2023 li - em leitura acompanhada - todos os contos da Virginia Woolf por ordem cronológica. O curso foi oferecido pelo Literatura Inglesa Brasil com lives semanais e em directo no Youtube. Foi uma experiência enriquecedora pelos conhecimentos tão generosamente transmitidos pelos professores convidados.
Contos com unidade temática, contos com diferentes pontos de vista sobre o mesmo assunto, contos que conversam entre si, unen fragmentos da vida, esboços, rascunhos.
Uma sociedade, base de Um Quarto Só Seu, a atracção pela água em Uma Simples Melodia e O Fascínio Pelo Poço, a paleta de cores em diversos contos como o roxo, por exemplo, também importante em Rumo ao Farol.

A natureza, as estações do ano, o clima, as mudanças climáticas são assuntos caros à autora.
Uma escrita pictórica, a pintura e escrita e os seus pontos em comum.
A teatralidade das festas subversivas ou aderentes conforme os convidados ou não convidados; opressoras, consensuais, polifónicas, fúteis.

A grande festa que é a escrita woolfiana, um coro que forma uma unanimidade do conto ao romance do romance ao conto. Observação. Ambiguidade. Cenas do quotidiano. Momentos.

O legado? O feminismo e o empoderamento estético das mulheres.

[Carmo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tive ajudas preciosas para a compreensão destes contos, mesmo assim a minha mente ainda se recusa a voltar à normalidade. (que já não é grande coisa🥴)
Piadas à parte, Virgínia era mesmo um ser priveligiado com grande perspicácia.

[Omid Kamyarnejad · Rating 5 out of 5]

بی نظیر بود. کتاب از مجموعه داستان های شکل گرفته که اکثرن با محتوای فلسفی و فمینیستی مواجه است. به خصوص داستان یک تصویر از ولف بسیار استادانه طراحی شده که با نماد آینه (ضمیر ناخوداگاه، هویت) با استحاله ی سه شخصیت که هر سه هم یکی هستند مواجه می شویم. در جاهایی زاویه دید سوم شخص (دانای کل) روایت می شود و در بعضی جا دوم شخص و اول شخص. چرا که شخصیت داستانی، دیگر پیر و ناتوان شده و با نماد آیینه به معنای هویت هر بار به دوران جوانی, عاشقی و پیری فرتوت بودن خود می نگرد. در دیدگاهی فمینیستی افراطی در پایان عمر و کهندسالی متوجه آن می شود که هرگز ازدواج نکرده و با حسرت به گذشته، جوانی و میان سالی می نگرد. در جوانی از نامه های عاشقانه اش و از رابطه با مردانی که رابطه را منع می کرده صحبت به میان آمده و در میان سالی عاشق شده عشق را تجربه و زیسته است. که حالا نامه های عاشقی را جمع آوری می کرده و در کهن سالی تازه متوجه شده که هیچ ازدواجی نکرده است...
داستان از تکنیک سیال ذهن و ذهن خود پیرزن با فلاش بک و تغییر زاویه دید روایت می شود و...

[Cami L. González · Rating 4 out of 5]

Voy a ser super honesta, creo que no terminé de entender bien todos los cuentos. Creo que son relatos que tendré que releer varias veces para poder ir desentrañando las capas y descubrir qué es lo que realmente quería decir la autora. Además, son del tipo que hay que leer de forma consciente pues Virginia juega mucho con la prosa, con cambios de narradores, paso de diálogo a narración a pensamientos y así. Fue difícil seguir el hilo de lo que está diciendo porque son monólogos internos o corrientes de la consciencia, entonces muchas veces resultaron caóticos. Por todo eso, perdón si no puedo ofrecer una mejor reseña o comentario sobre ellos.

Esta edición de Seix Barral es la primera traducción hecha en Colombia que estuvo a cargo del Colectivo Barbárika. Estos 18 relatos fueron traducidos por el colectivo de forma conjunta, con retroalimentación constante y como un experimento para intentar transmitir de mejor manera las particularidades de la autora. Me gustó mucho esto, porque implicó todo un trabajo adicional y cuidadoso detrás de cada relato y, dada la complejidad de estos, era algo más que necesario.

"Su mente era como su habitación, en donde luces avanzaban y retrocedían, venían haciendo piruetas y pisaban con delicadeza, extendían sus colas, picoteaban a su paso; y entonces todo su ser se bañaba, de nuevo como la habitación, con una nube de algún profundo conocimiento, algún arrepentimiento no expresado y entonces se llenaba de cajones con llave, rellenos de cartas como sus escritorios."

Virginia Woolf es una autora cuya gracia, en mi opinión, está en el cómo narró la cotidianidad de su época a través de monólogos y corrientes de la consciencia con una prosa preciosa. De alguna forma, Woolf le dio voz a los pensamientos femeninos tan mirados en menos, sobre todo en esos años, así le dio voz a las preocupaciones de las mujeres. Desde mi ignorancia dividiría estos relatos en dos tipos principales. En el primero, la autora se centró en la corriente de la consciencia y pensamientos de su protagonista o protagonistas mientras hacían algo muy sencillo. Aquí entrarían los relatos como La marca en la pared, Kew Gardens o Una recopilación, por ejemplo.

"Lo que todos tenían miedo de decir, era que la felicidad es muy barata. Se puede tenerla por nada. La belleza."

En la segunda categoría, la prosa de la autora siguió siendo muy propia, pero mucho más clara y fácil de seguir, pues el foco del relato era el giro que tenía o lo que sucedía en él. Este estilo fue mi favorito, quizá porque como dije era el más fácil de seguir, aquí entrarían relatos como El legado, La duquesa y el joyero o La partida de caza. La autora fue capaz de mantener por completo su estilo muy personal, pero dosificarlo lo suficiente como para permitir que no me perdiera los detalles de lo que sucedía, las pistas que dio y el giro que entregó cuando acabó el relato.

"Palabras cortas e insignificantes expresaban también algo, palabras con alas cortas para su pesado cuerpo de significado."

Si han leído a Cortázar es probable que el estilo se les haga parecido, pues Woolf logró construir una prosa que mezcló diálogo, narración, pensamientos y cambios de narrador. Sus relatos son cortos, pero te obligan a estar concentrado para poder seguir bien el hilo de lo que está narrando. Al mismo tiempo, incluso así al terminar es posible quedar con la sensación de que no acabamos de entender del todo lo que la autora quiso decir y varios relatos, si no todos, requieren una o varias releídas para ser apreciados por completo.

"Sería maravilloso ser ellos, pero estaba condenada a ser ella misma y tan solo podía, de este modo silencioso y entusiasta, sentada afuera en un jardín, aplaudir a la sociedad de la humanidad de la que estaba excluida."

Hubo relatos en los que no pasó nada importante como en El vestido nuevo, pero la forma en que estaban construidos, los pensamientos, las subidas y bajadas de humor, el caos de las ideas y las emociones resultaron maravillosos de leer. Woolf no tuvo problemas en representar esos ir y venir de la mente, las dudas, la ansiedad, los pensamientos intrusivos, los miedos, puede ser caótico y, a veces, complicado de seguir, pero es una forma bastante cercana a cómo realmente funciona nuestra mente.

"El alma -pues era consciente del movimiento en ella de una criatura que se abría camino a golpes en su interior e intentaba escapar, que por el momento llamaba el alma- es por naturaleza solitaria, un ave viuda; un ave posada distante en ese árbol."

Es cierto que dio voces a mujeres y representó su cotidianidad de una forma muy bella, llena de complejidad y humanidad. No obstante, en sus relatos también fue capaz de ponerse en los zapatos de personajes masculinos con un resultado tan favorable como en los otros. Por ejemplo, en El hombre que amaba su prójimo retrató a un hombre que moralmente se creía superior y miraba en menos la superficialidad del evento al que se vio obligado a asistir. O lo que hizo con La duquesa y el joyero narrando todo este plan por parte del joyero, su mente y su relación complicada con la mujer.

"Deja entonces que perezca tu esperanza, que languidezca en el desierto mi alegría, que avance desnuda."

Algo interesante fue que, sin importar el largo del relato, la autora no solo era capaz de entrar en la mente de un personaje, sino que de varios. Si bien en algunos se centró solo en la mente de su protagonista como Lappin y Lapp��nova, la verdad es que también hubo relatos que se centraban en un lugar o un objeto e iban cambiando de punto de vista según la persona o las personas que pasaran por ahí, como Kew Gardens. O lo que hizo cuando lo que hacía era narrar la misma situación desde el punto de vista de ambos implicados, como fue el caso de Juntos y distantes en el que leímos a esta pareja que fue presentada y cómo su relación se fue desarrollando desde ambas partes.

"La vida es lo que se ve en los ojos de las personas; la vida es lo que aprenden y, habiéndolo aprendido, nunca, por más que intenten esconderlo, dejan de ser conscientes, ¿de qué? De que así es la vida, tal parece."

Cuentos completos de Virginia Woolf son relatos que se deben leer con tiempo, dedicándose a disfrutar cada uno, permitirse la concentración para devorar palabra por palabra y entender que es posible que tengan que volver a ellos de vez en cuando para terminar de entender su complejidad. Sin embargo, desbordan no solo la creatividad de la autora, sino que también un estilo muy propio de su pluma y sus temas recurrentes.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A selection of prose/poetry that reminds me much of James joyce: after all, they were both working at the same time and both had experienced the modernist movement. There are lovely lines here such as "Blue are the ribs of the wrecked rowing boats"; there is what feels like prose/poetry that needs to be read and reread to (hopefully) get a grip on what, exactly, Woolf was trying to say; and there are bits that, to me, seemed like a writer scribbling: I can't imagine these notes were meant to be published. But, all in all, this is a fascinating look into Woolf's world.

[M&A Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

ویرجینیا ولف را باید نماینده ادبیات مدرن دانست. وقتی داستان های کوتاهش را در این مجموعه می خواندم به یاد جیمز جویس می افتادم. صرف نظر از مباحث فمینیستی ش در بقیه موارد عجیب شبیه جویس است. ابهام و روایت ضمیر خودآگاه از مواردی است که داستان های وی را دشوار می کند. این اثر سرشار از اشارات فمینیستی و فلسفی بود.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

But at night the town looks quite ethereal. There is a white glow on the horizon. There are hoops and coronets in the streets. The town has sunk down into the water. And the skeleton only is picked out in fairy lamps.

the closing words of The Watering Place, likely written in March 1941, the month of Virginia Woolf's death.

The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf is a definitive work resulting from Susan Dick's heroic efforts to assemble all of Woolf's shorter fiction, from her first piece in 1906, "Phyllis and Rosamond", to her last, a month before her death, in 1941, "The Watering Place", into one volume.

This was an undertaking that required significant judgement as to the final form of unpublished works, as well as to the boundary between essay and fiction (I have included in this collection only those short pieces that are, to my mind, clearly fictions, that is, works in which the characters, scenes, and actions are more imaginary than they are factual, and in which the narrator's voice is not necessarily identified with the author). The latter judgement has led to the exclusion of certain works, such as biographical sketches, and the inclusion of others (notably "A Woman's College from Outside") more commonly classed as essays.

Dick's Introduction acknowledges the existence of three previous key partial collections, all of which I have previously read:

- the only collection of short stories published in Woolf’s lifetime, Monday or Tuesday – my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

- the overlapping collection assembled by Leonard Woolf after his wife’s deathA Haunted House and Other Stories - my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And another collection assembled by Hogarth Press in 1973, but without input from either Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway's Party: A Short Story Sequence I review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I therefore restricted my reading of this book, and in particular my rating, to the pieces not covered by any of the above, which comprised the following:

"Phyllis and Rosamond"
"The Mysterious Case of Miss V"
"The Journal of Mistress Joan Martyn"
"A Dialogue upon Mount Pentelicus"
"Memoirs of a Novelist"
"The Evening Party"
"Sympathy"
"A Woman's College from Outside"
"In the Orchard"
"The Prime Minister" (which became part of Mrs Dalloway)
"Nurse Lugton's Curtain"
"The Widow and the Parrot: A True Story"
"Happiness"
"A Simple Melody"
"The Fascination of the Pool"
"Three Pictures"
"Scenes from the Life of a British Naval Officer"
"Miss Pryme"
"Ode Written Partly in Prose.."
"Portraits"
"Uncle Vanya"
"Gypsy, the Mongrel"
"The Symbol"
"The Watering Place"

"Phyllis and Rosamond"is a great starting piece as, though very early in her development as a writer, it shows Woolf thinking about the demands of the age on the form:

In this very curious age, when we are beginning to require pictures of people, their minds and their coats, a faithful outline, drawn with no skill but veracity, may possibly have some value.

Let each man, I heard it said the other day, write down the details of a day's work; posterity will be as glad of the catalogue as we should be if we had such a record of how the door keeper at the Globe, and the man who kept the Park gates passed Saturday March 18th in the year of our Lord 1568.

And as such portraits as we have are almost invariably of the male sex, who strut more prominently across the stage, it seems worth while to take as model one of those many women who cluster in the shade.

"Happiness" and "A Simple Melody" rather belong with the other stories in Mrs. Dalloway's Party: A Short Story Sequence, indeed the latter makes for a great companion read with George Carslake, from whose PoV it is written, observing Stuart Elton from Happiness, Mabel Waring from The New Dress (Carslake remarks on her pretty yellow dress but that She looked agitated, and we know from The New Dress that Mabel is insecure in her choice of fashion) and, most deliciously, that angry looking chap with the toothbrush moustache who seemed to know nobody, who we know from "The Man who Loved his Kind" is Prickett Ellis, an old school acquaintance of Richard Dalloway who invited him to the party when he ran in to him in the street.

The appendix to the collection also contains some fragmentary pieces, such as "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday" which features lavender from Sandringham, which Dick correctly comments in her notes likely meant from the then recently founded lavender fields of nearby Heacham. Another Norfolk link comes from The Journal of Mistress Joan Martyn, written in 1906 while Virginaia Woolf was staying in Blo'Norton Hall and set in a ficticious country house in the area - We in Norfolk today are much the same as we were in the day of Helen [of Troy], whenever she may have lived.. Mistess Joan writes fearfully of the journey to London via the 15th century equivalent of the M11 in a passage which feels harsh but true of Essex:

There is but one road and it passes through vast lands, where no man live, but only those who have murdered or robbed.

As a carefully assembled, helpfully annotated and comprehensive collection of Woolf's shorter fiction this is highly worthwhile, although I remain a fan of her novels, followed by her essays, with her stories seeming mostly exercises towards the longer form. The marginal effect of this book for me, after the three aforementioned published collections, was also rather diminished, particularly as almost all of the pieces that remain had not been revised for publication by the author. So 3 stars for my reading experience.

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was reading a collection of short stories by Vita Sackville-West when it was time to choose my next Virginia Woolf title, so I thought it would be fun to read this collection of her short work. With selections ranging from before 1917 to 1941, there is a great deal to enjoy here.

And I did enjoy nearly everything, it was not until I reached the final section (1926 -1941) that I began to struggle. There were 17 pieces in the section; many of them were just one or two pages in length. But they all seemed distant to me, as if my brain just said 'here and no further'. I will come back some day and give this section proper attention, because I ended up skimming through it this time. And I had to skip all of the Notes And Appendices pages due to the extremely tiny print. I know I missed explanation notes for many references throughout the stories but old eyes have their limits.

From my notes, I see that I had a bit of trouble reading so many of these pieces one right after the other. Woolf makes you work, you cannot really relax and just absorb the tale, and that can get tiresome. Also the basic themes here are repeated over and over until you expect each story to be set in a gathering at someone's home, or show the inner frettings of outwardly socially confident people. Then when the basic theme changes to something else, it is like a breath of fresh air. I think this book should be read in small doses with other books in between, just to give your mental powers a rest every so often.

Also from my notes, I see that the majority of the stories I liked the best came from the years 1917-1921. For me these showcased VW's wonderful imagination and her ability to capture moods and settings in such a way as to make the reader experience them also. Kew Gardens was lovely: contrasting the life going on down in the soil of one of the flower beds with the life hurrying past on two feet. Solid Objects was a chilling portrayal of the development of an obsession that changed a man's life. An Unwritten Novel shows us the writer on a train, imagining a story for the woman across from her in the compartment, with changes in the planned plot showing up according to people and actions around her as the ride continues. And finally A Haunted House was a charming explanation of various noises and bumps in the night.

I have not yet read detailed biographies about Woolf. I am familiar with her general story, of course, but I am saving the two biographical titles in my stack until I have read the other prose works I have planned. But it seemed to me that during the years 1917 to 1921 she wrote more varied pieces, at least in these shorter lengths, and I would dare to say that perhaps she had more fun with them.

I am going to take a short break before I read the next Woolf Volume, but I will return soon to this intriguing author and see what other delights she has waiting for me.

[Pedro Fernández · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un cuento al día es una buena forma de leerlo. Es una extraordinaria forma de conocer la evolución de Virginia Woolf hacia el modernismo, el feminismo y la prosa lírica. Algunos relatos son experimentales, otros más conservadores, pero todos valen la pena.

[Kathryn Bashaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew I should read Woolf, but I kept putting it off because I knew she wrote alot of stream-of-consciousness, which is not my favorite style. And the stream-of-consciousness stories in this collection are not my favorites, but there are some absolute gems, too, which make me understand why everyone makes such a big fuss over Woolf. I would count "Solid Objects" and "The Journal of Mistress Joan Martyn" among the best short stories every written. I could read them over and over just for the loveliness of the language. Woolf did have incredible insight into human psychology and a gift for illuminating a moment.

[پیمان عَلُو · Rating 1 out of 5]

حالم از این زن بهم میخوره

[Agustina de Diego · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tiene una prosa muy original, juega con las estructuras, los principios te shockean.

[Twig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schon seit längerer Zeit hatte ich mir vorgenommen mehr von Virginia Woolf zu lesen und bin so froh mich für sie Erzählungen entschieden zu haben. Mir hat so gut wie jeder der Geschichten zu gesagt. Besonders eine Jagdgesellschaft konnte mich begeistern. Die Möglichkeit die Geschichten im original zu lesen und direkt mit dem deutschen vergleichen zu können war sehr interessant. Da ich so oft wie möglich versuche im original zu lesen aber doch ab und an englischsprachige Literatur in deutscher Übersetzung lese, war es in diesem Fall einfach interessant. Mir hat die deutsche übersetzt gut gefallen. Der schreibstill von Woolf ist sehr bildhaft und dennoch sehr unaufgeregt. Diese Mischung sagt mir sehr zu und er sorgt dafür das man gut in jede einzelne Erzählung reinfindet.

[Sushi (寿司) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vi elencherò solo i racconti che non mi sono piaciuti. :)
○ Note biografiche di una romanziera
○ Ode scritta parzialmente in prosa nel vedere il nome di Cutbrush sopra

Solo due a quanto pare. È stata una piacevole lettura.
Ho anche Mrs Dalloway da leggere che se sapevo che qui c'erano alcuni racconti avrei fatto il contrario.

[Elham Ghafarzadeh · Rating 1 out of 5]

این کتاب مجموعه داستان های کوتاه نویسنده رو شامل میشه که خیلی هاشون طرح داستان بودن تا خودِ داستان.. برای شروع کتاب خوبی نیست که از ویرجینیا وولف میشه خوند.. باید اول رفت سراغ رمان هاش..

[dominika.a.a · Rating 3 out of 5]

ocenka trochę z przymrużeniem oka bo chciałabym kiedyś do niej wrócić ✨

[Simona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nonostante non ami i racconti, devo ammettere che, a differenza di altre volte, questi racconti mi sono piaciuti. Sarà la penna raffinata ed elegante della Woolf, ma questi racconti mi hanno colpito. I racconti che la Woolf ci presenta compredono un periodo che va dal 1906, l'anno di "Phyllis e Rosamond", a "La stazione balneare" del 1941, il racconto che chiude la raccolta e che mette la parola fine alla sua vita di scrittrice.
In questi racconti la Woolf tocca varie tematiche, che già conosciamo, come le rivisitazioni rivedute e corrette de "La signora Dalloway" sino alla felicità, al suo desiderio di diventare scrittrice e al suo amore per la scrittura. Questi racconti ci mostrano una Woolf inedita, ironica, sotto certi aspetti, preparando i suoi lettori ai grandi capolavori che l'hanno resa conosciuta.
Per quanto mi riguarda, non posso che ringraziare la Woolf per la grande scrittrice che è stata e per avermi riappacificato con il genere racconto.

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume has notes about each of the short stories— time and circumstances of creation, when published.

One of my favourites is The Legacy, a late work that was rejected by a US women’s magazine shortly before Virginia Woolf waded into the river. Poor old Virginia — dealing with rejection at such a delicate moment. I won’t describe The Legacy’s plot points (a husband dealing with the legacy of his wife’s sudden death), but all in all the story, and the story of the story, amounts to a morbid glimpse into the torments of a writer’s soul.

This collection really is a kind of reference volume — there is so much here, presented with a wealth of background information.

[Sarvenaz Taridashti · Rating 4 out of 5]

زندگی به عریانی استخوان است.

[Lee Foust · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, before you scream at me--"Only three stars for a Virginia Woolf???!!??!?!?"--allow me to state upfront that she's really one of my personal favorite writers and objectively probably in the top five novelists of all time, and note (since I see Goodreads has collapsed the reviews here to several different editions of her short prose) that I've read The Complete Shorter Fiction of V. W.. Therefore, I'm not saying that there aren't five star passages here, only that, well, what with the texts she left unfinished, some unedited and buried in notebooks, some in typescript, and a few published in magazines, and those few she collected into Monday or Tuesday (the lone book of short prose published during her lifetime) this exhaustive collection is bound to be less that stellar throughout and to be something for the completist (which I am) rather than just any ole reader, but isn't cut of the same cloth as her wonderful novels.

Beyond the hodgepodge nature of these texts, some experimental and abstract, others more traditional, many character sketches or two characters interacting, and even a couple of more stripped down and normalized and thus not Woolf-like at all, I have to say that reading this collection straight through it struck me (and the thought lingered) that Woolf's amazing and unique prose style was distinctly ill suited for the short form. There's just something about a unique prose style in a short text that tends to stand out way too strongly, to overpower plot and character and, well, just not to work.

This second observation is probably also exacerbated by the fact that at about the 2/3-s of the way through this collection I began reading a popular late Victoria master of the short form, Mary Elizabeth Braddon's collection of supernatural tales and, man, her very smooth only subtly unique narrative style showed my how one masters the short story. Sorry, Virginia. You're by far the greater genius, but your genius lies in your novels, although I still enjoyed much of this, appreciating the experimentation and often the effects achieved. It is truly brilliant here and there but overall an unsteady, bumpy ride.

[herbatk a · Rating 5 out of 5]

love the vibes, love her and her words

maany beautiful lines that just speak to me directly, i've put many tabs in the book.
there's a story about a dog and there's a sapphic story (i knew it;!!), a fun rabbit one... most of them are really short. and we have like 5+ stories from Mrs Dalloway's world

i prefer books over short stories, if goodreads allowed half-stars the rating would probably be 4.5/5

[Gandom Sharafifar · Rating 5 out of 5]

زندگی همانی است که شما در چشم‌های مردم می‌بینید؛ زندگی همانی است که آن‌ها می‌آموزند، و پس از آن ‌که آموختند، گرچه می‌کوشند پنهانش کنند، هرگز نمی‌توانند انکارش کنند. -چه چیزی را؟ این که زندگی همانی است که به نظر می‌رسد.

[سیاووش · Rating 4 out of 5]

مجموعه‌ی تمام داستان کوتاه‌های وولف، که نکته‌سنج و باهوش و خوش‌فکره و ریزبینی طنزآمیزش همیشه بهترین چیز دنیاست. ترجمه و ویرایش کتاب نیاز به کار دارن. آخرش مقاله‌ای در مورد خانم دالووی آورده شده که نه ربطی به کتاب داره نه مقاله‌ی خوبیه.

[Bartek Szeluga · Rating 3 out of 5]

nawiedzony dom mnie nie przeraził, ale proza VW jak zwykle zachwyciła, choć opowiadanka w tym zbiorze są lepsze i gorsze, tak pół na pół bym powiedział

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had this book for quite some time and so part of me felt like this was going to be somewhat of an obligatory read when it ended up being quite enjoyable. I didn't expect Woolf to be as playful and funny as she was in many of these tales. Arranged chronologically, you can see her style and interests develop as she works through everything from vignettes to character sketches. There is a spirit of invention and an undermining of social conventions/expectations in many of these pieces. In "A Society" women take the trouble to actually read and find that the benefit of the doubt they've given to men all these years has been sorely misplaced (men have not been holding up their part of the social contract and writing brilliant works while women raise the children). Nature itself often takes on a symbolic role as Woolf walks us through wonderfully descriptive landscapes. These stylistic approaches and some of the exact characters would later be woven into the novels for which she is better known. I think my favorite in this collection was actually the children's story, "The Widow and the Parrot," but there were at least a dozen others that spoke to me, as well. And I learned a new exclamation---"Lawk a mussy!"---with which I hope to drive my son absolutely crazy.

[Melina Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jag älskar Virginia Woolf. Visst, alla noveller är inte 5or. Några är kanske 3or. Men jag bryr mig inte. Har njuuuutit av denna samling.

”Hans stora önskan var att bli säker på att alla människor var lika. Han kände att om han kunde bevisa det, skulle han ha löst ett stort problem. Men var det sant? Han fortsatte att se på tavlan. Försökte han inte tvinga på människorna, som ju på grund av sin natur var motsatser, olikartade, i krig med varandra, ett krav som kanske var orimligt – en enkelhet som inte hörde ihop med deras natur? Konsten har den, en tavla kan ha den, men människor känner den inte. När man vandrar tillsammans på en hed, skapas en atmosfär av likhet. Men i umgängeslivet, där var och en vill glänsa och tvinga på andra sina synpunkter, skapas olikheter. Och vilket är sannast?”

[Aniek Verheul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wait, what do you mean, there's no more short fiction left? I'm going to miss having this one on my nightstand! This is a really nicely organised edition with great annotations and some incomplete work in appendices, all of which was lovely to see. Woolf is a master of the short story form, and it's so nice to track her evolution as an author from her earliest stories all the way until the last. I do think that the earlier, more experimental, ones resonated with me a little more than the latter half of this collection, but those final three stories pack a mighty punch. Among my favourites are "Solid Objects", "An Unwritten Novel", "The New Dress", "Gipsy, the Mongrel", and "The Legacy", but there truly isn't a single story that I disliked.

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

در یک کلمه فوق العاده! خصوصا داستان آخر:《انجمن》
سبک نوشتاری ویرجینیا ولف طوریه ک انگار شما رو تنه یک درخت ایستادید و ویرجینیا ولف شما رو به شاخه ای هدایت میکنه بعد ب شاخه فرعیش و شاخه های فرعی بعدش و دوباره شما رو به تنه برمیگردونه و وارد ی شاخه دیگه میشید.این کاملا احساس من رو حین خوندن این کتاب بیان می کنه و با وجود فاصله ای ک در خوانشم افتاد تجربه واقعا دلچسبی بود..♡