Virginia Woolf On Being Ill: With Notes from Sick Rooms by Julia Stephen

"By turns lyrical, self-mocking, and outlandish, Woolf's meditation on the perils and privileges of the sickbed lampoons the loneliness that makes one 'glad of a kick from a housemaid.' When Woolf imagines beauty in a frozen-over garden . . . it seems less a triumph of nature than of art."-- The New Yorker "Brilliant and beautiful."--Francine Prose, Bookforum "[A] long-neglected reverie on illness . . . reprinted by the sterling Paris Press. This is a brilliant and odd book, charged with restrained emotion and sudden humor."-- Los Angeles Times Book Review "The resurrection of this forgotten work on illness is a boon indeed. . . . This is Woolf at her spangled best."-- Booklist In this poignant and humorous book, Virginia Woolf observes that no human being is spared toothaches, colds, and the flu. Yet illness--transformative and as common as love and war--is rarely the subject of polite conversation, let alone literature. This paperback facsimile of the 1930 Hogarth Press edition, with Hermione Lee's introduction to Woolf's life, work, and On Being Ill , is ideal for book groups, general readers, students, caregivers, and of course anyone suffering from a cold or more serious illness. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is among the greatest literary geniuses of the twentieth century. Her groundbreaking books include Mrs. Dalloway , To the Lighthouse , and A Room of One's Own . Hermione Lee is the renowned author of Virginia Woolf . Her other best-selling biographies include Edith Wharton , Willa Cather , and Philip Roth . She is president of Wolfson College, University of Oxford, England.