Orlando (Annotated): A Biography by
Virginia Woolf
"The Very Fabric Of Life Was Magic."
Begun as a joke, Orlando is Virginia Woolfs fantastical biography of a poet
who first appears as a sixteen-year-old boy at the court of Elizabeth I, and
is left at the novels end a married woman in the year 1928. Part love letter
to Vita Sackville-West, part exploration of the art of biography, Orlando is
one of Woolfs most popular and entertaining works. This new annotated
edition will deepen readers understanding of Woolfs brilliant creation.
Annotated and with an introduction by Maria DiBattista

Personal Review: Orlando (Annotated): A Biography by Virginia
Woolf
In her most playful and exuberant novel, Virginia Woolf writes the
"historical biography" of Orlando, a young boy of nobility during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth I. A wild ride through four centuries, the novel shows
Orlando aging, magically, only thirty-six years between 1588 and 1928.
Even more magically, he also changes from a man to a woman. As she
explores Orlando's life, Woolf also explores the differing roles of men and
women in society during various periods, ultimately concluding that one's
role as a man or woman is determined by society, rather than by birth.
From the Elizabethan period, during which Orlando works as a steward for
the queen and also serves as her lover, he progresses to the reign of
James I, experiencing a profound love for a Russian princess, Sasha, who
is herself exploring the role of a man. When the relationship ends, he
retreats, devastated, to his estate, with its 365 rooms and 52 staircases,
which he redecorates over the next few years. An interlude in which he is
wooed by the Archduchess Harriet/Archduke Harry leads to his
ambassadorship to Constantinople, a period spent with the gypsies, and
his eventual return to England--as a woman. New experiences and
observations await her there.
Throughout the novel, Woolf matches her prose style to the literary style of
the period in which Orlando lives, creating always-changing moods and
sheer delight for the reader. Some constants continue throughout the four
centuries of Orlando's life. Orlando is always a writer, always recording his
thoughts, and always adding to a poem he has begun as a child entitled
"The Oak Tree." He is always returning to his 365-room house whenever
he needs to recuperate from his experiences, and some characters repeat
through time. (Orlando is betrayed by Nick Greene during the reign of
James I, but he is encouraged by Nicholas Greene in the Victorian period.)
Literary historians make much of the fact that Woolf modeled Orlando on
Vita Sackville-West, Woolf's lover, and that this study of gender roles was
an early exploration of lesbianism, bisexuality, cross-dressing, and
transgender identities. The novel is pure fun to read, however, and though
it raises serious and thoughtful questions about sexuality and the ways that
it controls our lives, there is no sense that Woolf wrote the novel
specifically to make a public statement or prove a point. Her themes of
gender and its relation to social expectations, of imagination and its
relation to reality, of the importance of history in our lives, and of the
unlimited potential of all humans, regardless of their sex, transcend the
specific circumstances under which Woolf may have written the book. A
playful and delightful novel, which broke new ground with its publication.
Mary Whipple
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