Orlando

Name: Orlando
ISBN: 9787532790593

Virginia Woolf / 任一鸣Shanghai Translation Publishing House · ChinaDec 2022

4.4

Word count: 147K words
Chapters: 8
ISBN: 9787532790593

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Summary

Orlando begins in Elizabethan England in the sixteenth century and ends in 1928, "the present" when Woolf laid down her pen—a span of four hundred years. Orlando is a noble, innocent young man, enamored of poetry, who enters the court after winning the Queen's favor. When King James takes the throne and the Great Frost descends, Orlando meets a Russian princess and falls in love, only to suffer betrayal in both literature and love. After a great fire in Constantinople, Orlando becomes a woman, first living among the Gypsies and later returning to England as a society lady. In the Victorian age, to continue writing, Orlando can only compromise with the spirit of the age. By the story's end, Orlando is an award-winning poet of the twentieth century; she returns to the great house that runs through the whole book, comes to the great oak tree, and looks back on her enduring pursuit of literature and poetry.

This book is Woolf's biography of a fictional figure—light and humorous in language, wildly imaginative in conception. Hailed as a feminist classic, it is a pioneering work that tells the story of "the second sex" from a literary perspective.

Editor's review

Virginia Woolf's Orlando is a avant-garde work that transcends its era, exploring the nature of identity, time, and art through a fantastical journey across four centuries and across genders. This edition from Shanghai Translation Publishing House has a fluent translation that capture Woolf's lively, poetic, and slightly playful style well. Though labeled a "feminist" and "gender-fluid" novel, its core is far richer than any label—it is a dazzling rebellion against literary tradition, a questioning of "certainty" in historical writing, and a poetic deconstruction of the concept of "self." Through Orlando's extraordinary transformation from an Elizabethan noble youth into a Victorian woman writer, Woolf subtly dissolves the fixed constraints of gender, class, and era. While reading, you not only experience the immersive psychological landscape created by stream-of-consciousness technique, but also feel the author's profound reflection on the relationship between literature and history. The value of this book lies in that it does not offer an answer but opens a door, inviting readers to reexamine those definitions of life and creation we take for granted.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers with a deep interest in gender issues and identity
Literary lovers who wish to experience the unique charm of stream-of-consciousness literature
Readers who enjoy narratives blending history and fiction with whimsical imagination
Those engaged in artistic creation who hope to draw inspiration and reflection from it

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking strong plot and fast-paced narrative
Readers expecting clear conclusions or realist works

Reading tips

Let go of expectations of traditional linear narrative and follow the flow of Woolf's poetic stream of consciousness to feel the elasticity of time.
You may read it alongside Woolf's biography and feminist viewpoints, but need not confine yourself to a single interpretive framework.
As you read chapters set in different eras, pay attention to the subtle interplay between Orlando's identity transformations and the spirit of the age and literary trends.

About the publisher

Shanghai Translation Publishing House China · Founded in 1978

Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.

版权信息
译本序
第一章
第二章
第三章
第四章
第五章
第六章

FAQ

Is this book purely a feminist novel?

It is often regarded as a feminist classic, but its meaning goes far beyond that. Its core exploration concerns the fluidity of self, time, art, and history; the gender transformation is a brilliant vehicle for exploring these themes.

Does the stream-of-consciousness style make reading difficult?

Compared with Mrs Dalloway or To the Lighthouse, Orlando has a clearer timeline and character trajectory; its stream-of-consciousness serves the portrayal of inner life and period atmosphere. It is quite readable and a good starting point for encountering Woolf's style.

Does the book's historical background require much prior knowledge?

No specialized historical knowledge is needed. Woolf sketches several key slices of English history from the Renaissance to modernity with parody and poetic touches; her aim is to evoke the spirit of the age rather than historical detail, and readers can immerse themselves fully in the story.

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About the author

Virginia Woolf Author · British · 1882–1941

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was a British modernist writer born in London; her original name was Adeline Virginia Stephen. She reshaped the novel through stream-of-consciousness narration, presenting everyday experience through characters' inner monologues and flowing sensations in a delicate, rhythmic prose. Her major works include Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando and The Waves. Orlando imagines a life across eras and genders, while To the Lighthouse reflects memory and loss through family and time. She also wrote the feminist classic A Room of One's Own and essays such as If Shakespeare Had a Sister, centering on women and the conditions of writing. Forty-one of her works are included here under foreign literature and essays. She drowned herself in 1941.

任一鸣 Author

REN Yiming: publicly available information is limited, and details of the author's identity and life remain to be verified. Judging from the three works held in the library, the author's focus is on foreign literature, particularly the study and translation of English literature. The representative works include Orlando and A Study of Twentieth-Century British Women Writers. The former is presumably a translation of, or commentary on, Virginia Woolf's classic novel, while the latter indicates a systematic survey of twentieth-century British women writers. Commonly classified under foreign literature and literary appreciation, the works suggest that the author combines academic research with textual appreciation, attending both to close reading and to the tradition of women's writing and literary history. Overall, REN Yiming's writings reflect a sustained interest in English literature, especially the work of women writers, and may be of value to readers interested in foreign literature and the study of women's writing.