The elegant Clarissa Dalloway is putting the finishing touches on her house as she prepares to host a high-society party in the evening. Meanwhile, Septimus Smith struggles with the after-effects of shell-shock. At first glance, the two could not appear to be any more different - Dalloway is a middle-aged woman at home in the high-flying lifestyle of the prosperous upper classes, while Smith is poor, young and traumatised. The two narratives interweave to tell a haunting tale of life in interwar London.

Lyrical, revolutionary, and extraordinarily insightful, this pivotal work showed what was possible in the modern novel.