Orlando
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Orlando, novel by Virginia Woolf, published in 1928. The fanciful biographical novel pays homage to the family of Woolf’s friend Vita Sackville-West from the time of her ancestor Thomas Sackville (1536–1608) to the family’s country estate at Knole. The manuscript of the book, a present from Woolf to Sackville-West, is housed at Knole.
The novel opens in 1588. Young Orlando, a 16-year-old boy, writes a poem called “The Oak Tree.” He finds favour at the Elizabethan court and love in the arms of a Russian princess. A garrulous poet, Sir Nicholas Greene (said to be modeled on Sir Edmund Gosse), discusses literature with him. During the reign of Charles II (1660–85), Orlando is named ambassador to Constantinople and is rewarded with a dukedom. One night he stays with a dancer and cannot be awakened. Seven days later Orlando rises, now a beautiful woman. She returns to England and savours intellectual London society in the age of Addison, Dryden, and Pope but turns to bawdy street life for relief from this cerebral life. She marries to achieve respectability during the Victorian years, and by 1928 she has returned to London, where she is reunited with her friend Greene, who offers to find a publisher for “The Oak Tree.” Back at her country estate, she stands under the great oak and remembers her centuries of adventure.
The novel is also an affectionate portrait of Sackville-West, who, because she was a woman, could not inherit Knole. Written in a pompous biographical voice, the book pokes fun at a genre the author knew well: her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, had edited the Dictionary of National Biography, and her friend Lytton Strachey had written the revolutionary Eminent Victorians. Woolf also parodies the changing styles of English literature and explores issues of androgyny and the creative life of women. Orlando marked a turning point in Woolf’s career. Not only was it a departure from her more introspective works, but its spectacular sales also ended her financial worries. Readers praised the book’s fluid style, wit, and complex plot.