Mrs. Dallowaycontains some of the most beautiful complex incisive and idiosyncratic sentences ever written in English and that alone would be reason enough to read it. It is one of the most moving revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century. Michael Cunningham author ofThe Hours Exploring the hidden springs of thought and action in one day of a woman s life Virginia Woolf is direct and vivid in her account of the details of Clarissa Dalloway s preparation for a party. The novel was first published in 1925 by the same Hogarth press that Woolf and her husband founded.