Orlando

Virginia Woolf

July 2000 · Naxos AudioBooks · Narrated by Laura Paton

About this audiobook

Orlando is one of the most unforgettable creations of twentieth-century literature. He emerges as a young man at the court of Queen Elizabeth I and progresses, with breathtaking ease, through three centuries until, by now a woman, she arrives in the bustle and diversion of the 1920s. For Virginia Woolf, a leading figure of the Bloomsbury Group, Orlando was more than a fantastic flight of imagination. It was a roman ˆ clef, a love letter for her lover, the charismatic, eccentric bisexual, Vita Sackville West. OrlandoÕs journey, from wondrous youth barbed by love, to f�ted writer, settled in her femininity, is a wild and curiously relevant fable for our times.

About the author

Virginia Woolf was born in London, England on January 25, 1882. She was the daughter of the prominent literary critic Leslie Stephen. Her early education was obtained at home through her parents and governesses. After death of her father in 1904, her family moved to Bloomsbury, where they formed the nucleus of the Bloomsbury Group, a circle of philosophers, writers, and artists. During her lifetime, she wrote both fiction and non-fiction works. Her novels included Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, and Between the Acts. Her non-fiction books included The Common Reader, A Room of One's Own, Three Guineas, The Captain's Death Bed and Other Essays, and The Death of the Moth and Other Essays. Having had periods of depression throughout her life and fearing a final mental breakdown from which she might not recover, Woolf drowned herself on March 28, 1941 at the age of 59. Her husband published part of her farewell letter to deny that she had taken her life because she could not face the terrible times of war.