The Waves by Woolf, Virginia - 1931

London: The Hogarth Press, 1931 First edition, first printing. One of 7113 copies. Publisher's purple cloth, lettered in gilt, printed on laid paper; in the original cream pictorial dust jacket designed by Vanessa Bell, decorated in lime-green and lettered in brown. Near fine book with light toning to spine, touch of spotting to text block edges; near fine lightly spotted unclipped dust jacket with minor toning to spine, small chip to foot of spine, and a small chip to right center of front panel. Overall, a very bright and attractive copy. Kirkpatrick A16a. Woolmer 279. The Waves is Virginia Woolf's most experimental text, which pushes the boundaries of the novel both thematically and structurally. The plot focuses on the lives of six main characters, spanning from childhood to adulthood, and the text is composed of the character's spoken soliloquies. Like much of Woolf's writing, The Waves is less plot-driven and more of a collection of captured moments; the beauty of The Waves lies in the eloquent descriptions of what Louis Kronenberger described as "the poetic symbols of life" in his 1931 review for The New York Times: "the changing seasons, day and night, bread and wine, fire and cold, time and space, birth and death and change." The Waves is arguably more poetry than novel, as Woolf used a variety of literary and poetic devices to blur the line between the two genres. . First Edition. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Dust Jacket Included.