The Waves

The most ambitious and groundbreaking novel by the author of To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway

Intensely lyrical and stylistically innovative, The Waves has been hailed as Virginia Woolf’s masterpiece. It interweaves the voices of six characters, three boys and three girls, beginning with their childhood in a garden by the sea and following them throughout their lives. As the six grow up they experience friendships and loves, triumphs and regrets, and they grieve for the death of a seventh character, their beloved friend Percival.

Interspersed throughout their interior monologues, and unifying them, are brief scenes of the seaside that progress from dawn to sunset of a single day. Defying classification, Woolf’s novel boldly breaks down the barriers between poetry and prose, as well as those between the consciousnesses of her individual characters, producing an entrancing and groundbreaking work of literature.