Orlando: A Biography / by Virginia Woolf by Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941

New York : Harcourt, Brace, c1928. First Edition. Hard Cover. ix, [5], 13-333 p., [8] leaves of plates: 8 ports.; 21.5cm. "First American edition--first trade impression."--A bibl. of Virginia Woolf / B.J. Kirkpatrick. Rev. ed. London, 1967. A11c. Includes index. "Third printing, December, 1928." "Orlando follows the story of a young nobleman, Orlando, who is born in the Elizabethan age and lives through 400 years of British history and time, experiencing life both as a man, and as a woman. The novel has been described as a love story, a history play and a fantastic pageant. When Virginia Woolf published Orlando in 1928, the world of life-writing had already received its first defining moment through the major work of her father, Lesley Stephens, with the Dictionary of National Biography. Virginia felt women, however, had been excluded from history books and biography – Orlando was her revolution for both. Before Orlando, Virginia had already published five novels with moderate success. Inspired by her love affair with another female writer, Vita Sackville-West, she decided to write a biography of an individual who lives several lives, as both sexes. Virginia moulded Orlando out of Vita, an aristocrat and a socialite, the wife of a diplomat and product of a long line of noble ancestors. She used Vita’s ancestral estate, Knole, as the setting and pictures of Vita and her family to illustrate the text." Stock#35,542. Vg/ dj vg.