Virginia Woolf's last novel. Set in the summer of 1939, on the day of the annual village pageant at Pointz Hall, the book weaves together the musings of several disparate characters and their reactions to the imminence of a war which is to change the pattern of history. That history is celebrated by the pageant, the work of Miss La Trobe. A genuine though not a successful artist, who knows the inevitability of failure, she cannot help cherishing the dream. This edition also consists of Introduction, Notes on the Text, Bibliography, A Chronology of the Author and Explanatory Notes.