The Common Reader

2021 Reprint of the 1925 Edition. The Common Reader, a collection of essays by Virginia Woolf, was published in two series, the first in 1925 and the second in 1932. This edition reprints the first series, first published in 1925. Most of the essays appeared originally in such publications as the Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, New Statesman, Life and Letters, Dial, Vogue, and The Yale Review. The title indicates Woolf's intention that her essays be read by the "common reader" who reads books for personal enjoyment. Using the sympathetic persona of "the common reader," Woolf treats literary topics. Woolf outlines her literary philosophy in the introductory essay to the first series, "The Common Reader," and in the concluding essay to the second series, "How Should One Read a Book?" The first series includes essays on Geoffrey Chaucer, Michel de Montaigne, Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Joseph Conrad, as well as discussions of the Greek language and the modern essay.

Content:

The common reader -- The Pastons and Chaucer -- On not knowing Greek -- The Elizabethan lumber room -- Notes on an Elizabethan play -- Montaigne -- The Duchess of Newcastle -- Rambling round Evelyn -- Defoe -- Addison -- The lives of the obscure: The Taylors and the Edgeworths. Laetitia Pilkington. Miss Ormerod -- Jane Austen -- Modern fiction -- "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" -- George Eliot -- The Russian point of view -- Outlines: Miss Mitford. Dr. Bentley. Lady Dorothy Nevill. Archbishop Thomson -- The patron and the crocus -- The modern essay -- Joseph Conrad -- How it strikes a contemporary.