Orlando: A Biography

A dazzling, gender-bending journey through three centuries of history and the fluidity of the self.Virginia Woolf’s Orlando is one of the most original and audacious novels in the English language. The story begins in the Elizabethan era, where the teenage nobleman Orlando becomes a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. He loves, he writes bad poetry, and he navigates the frozen Thames during the Great Frost. But Orlando’s life is no ordinary life. He lives on for hundreds of years, meeting key figures of English literature, from Alexander Pope to Jonathan Swift.Then, halfway through the book, Orlando wakes up in Constantinople to find that he has transformed into a woman. Without losing his memory or his personality, Orlando navigates the changing centuries—from the repressive Victorian era to the modern 20th century—as a woman, offering a unique perspective on gender roles, creativity, and love.Written as a "love letter" to Woolf’s lover, Vita Sackville-West, Orlando is a joyous celebration of life and a subversive critique of societal norms. It is funny, lyrical, and profoundly ahead of its time. This is a book for anyone who has ever felt that the soul is too vast to be contained by a single definition. Read more