The Times Literary Supplement was born in January 1902. Its first ever front page bashfully stated that ‘during the Parliamentary session Literary Supplements to “The Times” will appear as often as may be necessary in order to keep abreast with the more important publications of the day’. Fortunately, the question of necessity was not left in the hands of literary journalists (who, we can imagine, might occasionally push for a holiday or two), and the title became a weekly one. A few years later, the TLS split entirely from The Times.
Since then, we have prided ourselves on being the world’s leading magazine for culture and ideas. Our guiding principle for the selection of pieces remains the same as it ever has been: is it interesting; and is it beautifully written? Over the years, our contributors have included the very best writers and thinkers in the world: from Virginia Woolf to Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath to Susan Sontag, Milan Kundera to Christopher Hitchens, Patricia Highsmith to Martin Scorsese.
The book you are holding is part of a brand-new imprint, TLS Books, by which we are striving to bring more beautiful writing to a wider public. We hope you enjoy it. If you want to read more from us, you’ll find a special trial subscription offer to the TLS at the back of this book.
In an ever-quickening culture of flipness and facility, fake news and Facebook, the TLS is determined to be part of the counter-culture of quality. We believe in expertise, breadth and depth. We believe in the importance of ideas, and the transformative power of art. And we believe that, in reading the TLS – in whatever form, be it in a magazine, online or in a book – you are supporting a set of values that we have been proud to uphold for more than a hundred years. So thank you for that.
Stig Abell, Editor-in-Chief, TLS Books
London, 2019
FICTION
The Voyage Out
Night and Day
Jacob’s Room
Mrs Dalloway
To the Lighthouse
Orlando
The Waves
The Years
Between the Acts
NON-FICTION
The Common Reader Vols 1 and 2
A Room of One’s Own
Flush
Three Guineas
Roger Fry
TLS Books
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by TLS Books in 2019
Preface copyright © Ali Smith 2019
Introduction copyright © Francesca Wade 2019
Illustration copyright © Ella Baron 2019
Cover illustration by Ella Baron
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780008361884
Ebook Edition © November 2019 ISBN: 9780008355739
Version: 2020-11-05
Two things I mean to do when the long dark evenings come: to write, on the spur of the moment, as now, lots of little poems to go into P.H.: as they may come in handy: to collect, even bind together, my innumerable T.L.S. notes: to consider them as material for some kind of critical book: quotations? comments? ranging all through English literature as I’ve read it and noted it during the past 20 years.
Virginia Woolf, 1938
Contents
1 Cover
2 About the TLS
3 Works by Virginia Woolf
4 Title Page
5 Copyright
6 Epigraph
7 Contents
8 Preface
9 Introduction
10 Frontispiece
11 Charlotte Brontë
12 Hours in a Library
13 George Eliot
14 The Letters of Henry James
15 John Evelyn
16 On Re-reading Novels
17 How it Strikes a Contemporary
18 Montaigne
19 Joseph Conrad
20 Notes on an Elizabethan Play
21 Thomas Hardy’s Novels
22 Fanny Burney’s Half-Sister
23 Aurora Leigh
24 The Captain’s Death Bed
25 A Note on the Text
26 About the Author
27 Enjoyed the book?
28 Also from TLS Books
29 About the Publisher
LandmarksCoverFrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter
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