Virginia Woolf 
An Unwritten Novel 
With the Essay ‘How Should One Read a Book?’

Using Woolf’s famous modernist method, the reader follows the narrative of an unknown female travelling on a train from London to the South Coast of England. Creating fictional lives and assumptions from the passengers aboard, the narrator focuses her thoughts towards a woman that sits across from her, inventing a new identity for the woman based on the look that the narrator can read in her eyes. Will she be correct through her assumptions or turn out to be the worst Sherlock Holmes imaginable? ‘An Unwritten Novel’ creates a fascinating fictional world for a mundane journey that we often find ourselves in every day. Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was an English writer. She is widely hailed as being among the most influential modernist authors of the 20th century and a pioneer of stream of consciousness narration. Woolf was a central figure in the feminist criticism movement of the 1970s, her works having inspired countless women to take up the cause. She suffered numerous nervous breakdowns during her life primarily as a result of the deaths of family members, and it is now believed that she may have suffered from bipolar disorder. In 1941, Woolf drowned herself in the River Ouse at Lewes, aged 59.

About the author

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was an English writer, born in South Kensington, London. Known for her feminist writings and pioneering work with the narrative style of stream of consciousness, Woolf is widely considered to be one of the most influential modernist writers of the 20th century. Some of her most famous works include Mrs. Dalloway, 1925, To the Lighthouse, 1927, and A Room of One’s Own, 1929.