• A new edition of Woolf's fictional biography of a cross-dressing hero/ine whose experiments with genre and concerns with sexuality have ensured its popularity in the twenty-first century.
• The Introduction draws on the latest scholarship and considers questions concerning fame and posterity, the contemporary publishing context, the nature of biography, history and historicization.
• The notes provide essential contextual background and identify the literary allusions and self-reference.
• Up-to-date bibliography and full chronology.
• Biographical preface by Frank Kermode.

New to this Edition:

• Introduction by Michael Whitworth.
• Revised and updated Select Bibliography.
• New and expanded Notes.
• Re-set text, and original illustrations placed closer to their original position in the text.

'I feel the need of an escapade after these serious poetic experimental books...I want to kick up my heels & be off.'
  
Orlando tells the tale of an extraordinary individual who lives through centuries of English history, first as a man, then as a woman; of his/her encounters with queens, kings, novelists, playwrights, and poets, and of his/her struggle to find fame and immortality not through actions, but through the written word. At its heart are the life and works of Woolf's friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, and Knole, the historic home of the Sackvilles. But as well as being a love letter to Vita, Orlando mocks the conventions of biography and history, teases the pretensions of contemporary men of letters, and wryly examines sexual double standards.
   
This new edition discusses Woolf's stylistic aims, the biographical parallels, and the work's literary context, and includes the original illustrations.