1931 The Waves

Description

First Edition, Publishers' Original Binding, With Dustwrapper

The first edition, first impression of this work.

In the original Vanessa Bell designed unclipped dust wrapper.

One of the experimental novels of Virginia Woolf, following six narrators from childhood to adulthood through a series of soliloquies, ruminating on the concepts of individuality, self, and community. 

Readers can see some of Woolf's friends in her characters in this novel; in particular E. M. Forster in the writer Bernard, T. S. Eliot in the outsider Louis, Lytton Strachey in Neville, Mary Hutchinson in the socialite Jinny, Vanessa Bell, in the fleeing Susan, and Thoby Stephen in the flawed and never narrator Percival.

Written by the Bloomsbury author Virginia Woolf, a central figure of the literary group, herself known for her experimental writings and affair with fellow author Vita Sackville-West. 

Published by the Hogarth Press, the Bloomsbury publishing house founded ran by Leonard and Virginia Woolf. The press was founded in the interwar period, as printing became a hobby for the couple, diverting Virginia when her writing became too stressful. Both Woolfs' taught themselves to use a printing press, publishing 527 titles from the period of 1917 to 1946.