The Years is perhaps Virginia Woolf's most politically and historically embedded novel. It covers a period of intense social change from the 1880s to the 1930s, making direct reference to suffrage, Irish Home Rule, the First World War and anti-semitism. The novel's composition history is unusually complex; the text changed radically from its inception in 1931 to its publication in 1937. This edition provides readers with a fully collated and annotated text. It includes a substantial introduction that charts the composition process, a detailed chronology and full annotation of all historical, cultural and topographical references. All variants from extant galley and page proofs, as well as editions of the novel produced in Woolf's lifetime, are included, and reveal the significant and crucial changes Woolf made even in the months before publication.
• The introduction offers a new, more detailed, account of the novel's complex composition history and the key contexts for Woolf's six-year writing process • The explanatory notes illuminate new historical, cultural and topographical references and contexts • Textual apparatus shows for the first time the extent of the significant revisions Woolf undertook even in the months before publication
Contents
General editors' preface; Notes on the edition; Acknowledgements; Chronology; Introduction; Chronology of composition; The Years; Explanatory notes; Textual apparatus; Textual notes; Appendix; Bibliography.
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