To the Lighthouse

The Ramsays, the Hebrides, and time itself: Woolf's triptych of childhood, passage, and return.

Specifications & Metrics

author

Virginia Woolf

type

Modernist novel

era

High modernism (1927)

language

English

setting

The Isle of Skye, before and after the war

parts

3 parts

Relative Scale in Novels

Core Principles & Analysis

• Published 1927; its Ramsays draw on Woolf's own Stephen family summers.
• The central 'Time Passes' section collapses a decade and a war in pages.
• The painter Lily Briscoe's finishing line resolves the book.

Sources

• Wikipedia: To the Lighthouse