Orlando: A Biography.

WOOLF, Virginia.

$9,800.00

Item Number: 138537

New York: Crosby Gaige, 1928.

Signed limited first edition of Woolf’s immensely popular feminist classic, one of only 800 copies signed by her in her characteristic purple ink. Octavo, original publisher’s cloth decorated in gilt, top edge gilt, engraved frontispiece portrait of Orlando as a boy, illustrated with engravings. One of 800 copies signed by Woolf on the verso of the half-title page. Typography by Frederic Warde. In fine condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box by the Harcourt Bindery. Founded over a century ago in 1900, The Harcourt Bindery is the oldest and largest traditional bindery in America exclusively devoted to fine traditional leather bookbinding by hand. Easily one of the nicest we have seen.

Woolf is considered to be one of the greatest twentieth century novelists and one of the pioneers among modernist writers using stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Following her 1912 marriage to Leonard Woolf, the couple founded the Hogarth Press in 1917, which published much of her work. Arguably one of Woolf's most popular novels, Orlando describes the adventures of a poet who changes sex from man to woman and lives for centuries, meeting the key figures of English literary history. Considered a feminist classic, the book has been written about extensively by scholars of women's writing and gender and transgender studies and has been adapted a number of times for stage and screen.