Collected Novels of Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway To the Lighthouse The Waves

529 Pages·1992·56.57 MB·English

by  Virginia Woolf (auth.)

COLLECTED NOVELS OF VIRGINIA WOOLF
Virginia Woolf
COLLECTED NOVELS OF VIRGINIA WOOLF
Mrs. Dalloway
To the Lighthouse
The Waves
Virginia Woolf
Edited with an introduction and notes by
STELLA McNICHOL
M
MACMILLAN
Introduction and notes© Stella McNichol1992
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First published 1992 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-0-333-53751-0 ISBN 978-1-349-22364-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-22364-0
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Contents
A Note on the Text vii
Introduction 1
Mrs. Dalloway 33
To the Lighthouse 177
The Waves 335
Notes on the Novels
Mrs. Dalloway 509
To the Lighthouse 512
The Waves 521
v
A Note on the Text
In this edition of Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves, the
text is based on the earliest British edition of each novel (Mrs. Dalloway,
14 May 1925; To the Lighthouse, 5 May 1927; The Waves, 8 October
1931). All three novels were published by Leonard and Virginia
Woolf at The Hogarth Press, London. They were also published in
American editions by Harcourt, Brace & Company, New York, those
of Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse appearing on the same day as
the corresponding British editions, and The Waves on 22 October
1931.
It was Virginia Woolfs practice, having completed a novel, to
send a typescript to her British printers, R. & R. Clark of Edinburgh.
When they sent her the proofs of the novel, they would include an
additional set of proofs. She would then correct both sets of proofs,
returning one to R. & R. Clark for the British edition and sending the
other to Harcourt, Brace & Company for the American one. Had she
corrected the two sets of proofs consistently, the first British' and
American editions would have been identical, apart from any print
ers' errors and copy-editors' alterations that might have been intro
duced into the American ones. In fact, however, her proof-correcting
was inconsistent. Not only did she sometimes mark a correction in
one set of proofs and omit to mark it in the other, but also she did not
hesitate to revise some passages freely, again sometimes failing to
mark the revisions in both sets of proofs. The text of To the Lighthouse
must have undergone particularly heavy revision, for there are over
170 substantially different passages in the first British and the first
American editions, not to mention minor variants of spelling and
punctuation. In the text of Mrs. Dalloway there are fewer such varia
tions, and in that of The Waves there are very few, perhaps because
the final typescript of this novel had been made by a professional
typist and not by the author herself. It does not appear that Virginia
Woolf received proofs from Harcourt, Brace & Company in order to
make any corrections or revisions before publication, nor that she so
much as saw copies of the American editions; and it is certain that
she never emended the British editions by substituting variant read
ings from the American ones. It is for these reasons that the British
vii
viii Collected Novels of Virginia Woolf
editions have been taken as the basis of this edition of the three
novels.
Once a work of hers had been published Virginia Woolf seems to
have been disinclined to superintend later printings with a view to
correcting printers' errors or authorial ones. Occasionally she can be
seen making the latter kind of correction. Between May and Septem
ber 1925 she discovered that a conspicuous bow window belonged
to White's club and not to Brooks's, and changed the text of Mrs.
Dalloway accordingly (this edition, p. 46). After To the Lighthouse had
gone through three impressions in twelve months it was reissued in
1930 with a handful of re-phrasings: for instance, the original state
ment that Charles Tansley "smoked the cheapest tobacco; shag; the
same the old men did in the quays", ended, in 1930, "the same the
old men smoked on the quays" (this edition, p. 187). In general,
however, Virginia Woolf was content to let the text stand as first
published. Some evident errors of the first editions have persisted
for more than half a century. At the dinner-party in To the Lighthouse
Charles Tansley, to Lily Briscoe's annoyance, "sat opposite to her
with his back to the window precisely in the middle of view". When
she retumed years later to the house she recalled how "At dinner he
would sit right in the middle of the view". Nevertheless, the first
passage was not emended to conform to the second and to ordinary
English usage (this edition, pp. 241, 298).
When a work is reprinted there is always the risk that fresh errors
will creep in. A text that is completely re-set is particularly vulner
able. Thus, in the 1943 edition of The Wa.ves, the phrase "making the
ordinary leopard-spotted and strange" (this edition, p. 464) lost its
hyphen and its correct sense, appearing as "making the ordinary
leopard spotted and strange"; again, "the rubbed noses" that im
press Bernard whenever he enters St. Paul's (The Waves, this edition,
p. 500: compare "some battered nose or absurd tombstone" later in
the same paragraph) became "the rubbed roses" ip 1943. But even a
reimpression from standing type can incur error, as when the first
letter of a line worked loose in To. the Lighthouse (1930 edition) and
was replaced upside-down, thus changing "all that power" (this
edition, p. 235) to "all that dower", a misreading preserved in later
editions. The first British edition, then, is taken as the most authori
tative, subject to justifiable emendation.
A modem editor, confronted with a dubious passage in the text of
the first British edition of any of these novels, can take into consid
eration several kinds of evidence. Besides the evidence of ordinary
A Note on the Text ix
English usage and the evidence of the context, already referred to,
there is the evidence of the contemporary first American edition. In
To the Lighthouse (this edition, p. 297), the phrase "one of those
habitual currents which after a certain time experience forms in the
mind", cmTectly given in the American edition, suffers from the
accidental transposition "forms experience" in the British one. There
is the evidence of any extant revised proofs. There is also the evi
dence of Virginia Woolf s drafts, in manuscript or in typescript, that
preceded the final typescript, for though they belong to an earlier
stage of composition they may illuminate her intentions when these
are not clear in the published text. For example, the manuscript
drafts of Mrs. Dalloway are consistent in giving Rezia Warren Smith
only one sister, whereas on two occasions in the first half of the novel
the original British and American editions both mention her "sis
ters". It is hard to see how the plural word could have appeared
twice unless Virginia Woolf contemplated giving Rezia at least two
sisters in later passages, but if this was her intention she failed to
carry it out and so it has been decided to adopt the emendation
"sister'' in this edition (pp. 50, 81).
Some, but not all, of the textual questions that have arisen in
editing these three novels are discussed in the notes at the end of the
volume.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright-holders, but if any
have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased
to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.
Introduction
Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves, the novels collected
together in this edition, are those on which Virginia Woolfs reputa
tion as an important modernist writer stands. They are the novels of
her middle period. In them she draws repeatedly on events and
occurrences in her life and on her emotional and psychological expe
riences, most notably the trauma of mental breakdown (Mrs. Dalloway,
The Waves), and on the joy and security of childhood (To the Light
house, The Waves). Linking both, and also all three novels, is the
symbolism of the sea, the imagery of the waves, stemming from
vivid childhood recollections of being actually by the sea. Through
images of the sea Virginia Woolf conveys the psychological experi
ence of mental breakdown, but also her engagement with life and
her developing mysticism; and increasingly - from, that is, Mrs.
Dalloway to To the Lighthouse and from To the Lighthouse to The Waves
- the poetic resonances of her references to the sea become structur
ally important.
The rhythm of the ebb and flow of the sea weaves its way through
the texture of Mrs. Dalloway to indicate various aspects of the social
scene and to create an impression of the vitality of the city that
sustains the populace, including Clarissa Dalloway, in its ebb and
flow. It charts and registers Clarissa's fluctuating emotional response
to life. On her way to Bond Street she is either caught up "on waves
of that vitality'', which she loved, or is suddenly, in the midst of the
bustle around her, cast "out, far out to sea and alone", feeling that it
is very dangerous to live even for one day. In other words, below the
glitter of the smart world, and below the surface of Clarissa's social
competence and manners, a deeper layer of meaning and awareness
reveals itself in her moments of introspection and in Peter Walsh's
memories of her in particular. Although he seems endlessly to criti
cise her for being a socialite he nevertheless, in calmer moments,
reflects on her integrity, the genuineness of her feelings, and admits
to himself that her attitude to life is considered and generous. Bound
up with the latter is what he calls her "transcendental theory" whereby
she believed that one's spirit survived after death to be attached to
certain people and places. This belief is expressed, for instance, in
her own interior monologue on her way to Bond Street in which she
reveals that it is a consolation to her to think that after her death she
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