Essays on the Self

The Notting Hill Editions Classic Collection series brings together the great essayists of the past, introduced by contemporary writers. Essays on the Self is a surprising collection spanning twenty-one years of Virginia Woolf’s life, from the ages of thirty-seven to fifty-eight, the year before her suicide. The question of the self is central, in some way, to every essay in this book. Whether she is discussing the rights of women, the revolutions of modernity, social inequality, or the future of the novel, Woolf acknowledges that a writer’s task is to find a unique self through which to view the world. The thirteen essays are introduced by the novelist Joanna Kavenna.