The Waves

The Waves is often regarded as Virginia Woolf's masterpiece, standing with those few works of twentieth-century literature that have created unique forms of their own. In deeply poetic prose, Woolf traces the lives of six people from infancy to death as they fleetingly unite around the unseen figure of a seventh, Percival. Allusive and mysterious, The Waves yields new treasures upon each reading.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century, transformed the art of the novel. The author of numerous novels, collections of letters, journals, and short stories, she was an admired literary critic and a master of the essay form.

Mark Hussey, general editor of Harcourt's annotated Woolf series, is professor of English at Pace University in New York City and editor of the Woolf Studies Annual.

Molly Hite is professor of English at Cornell University. She is the author of Ideas of Order in the Novels of Thomas Pynchon, The Other Side of the Story: Structures and Strategies of Contemporary Feminist Narrative, and two novels, Class Porn and Breach of Immunity. She has written articles on postmodernist and modernist fiction, feminist theory and practice, and academic culture.

Annotated and with an introduction by Molly Hite

Preface: Virginia Woolf  

Chronology   

Introduction   

The Waves   

Notes to The Waves  

Suggestions for Further Reading:

 Virginia Woolf

Suggestions for Further Reading:

 The Waves