num_pages: 235
description: Virginia Woolf's lyrical, nostalgic novel centres at first on a family holiday in Skye where the subtle shifts of tension and affection between the Ramsays and their guests are delicately explored. James, the youngest son of Mr and Mrs Ramsay, has a devout wish to visit the lighthouse but his father, a rather pompous, philosophical man, seems determined to disappoint him. It is only many years later, when the war has brought dramatic changes to society and to the Ramsay family in particular, that the journey is made under very different circumstances.Virginia Woolf's extraordinary novel is both an elegy to her parents, whom she depicts as the Ramsays with a poignant accuracy, and an eloquent lament for a lost world, even if that world contained its own sorrows and disappointments.
language: English
title: To the Lighthouse
titlecomplete: To the Lighthouse
characters: Andrew Ramsay, Roger Ramsay, Rose Ramsay, Augustus Carmichael, Prue Ramsay, Nancy Ramsay, Cam Ramsay, Charles Tansley, Jasper Ramsay, Mr. Ramsay, Mrs. Ramsay, Paul Rayley, Mrs. McNab, James Ramsay, William Bankes, Lily Briscoe, Minta Doyle
genres: Fiction, British Literature, School, Literature, Classics, Novels, Feminism, 20th Century, Literary Fiction, Modern Classics
ratings_count: 174709
places: Skye, Inverness-shire, Scotland
awards: awardedAt: -1325433600000
name: Prix Femina - Vie Heureuse
publisher: Penguin Books