Night and Day: Annotated Edition

As Katherine Hilbery is helping her mother write the biography of her grandfather, a famous man of letters buried in Poets' Corner, she becomes engaged to William Rodney, a budding writer with an exaggerated opinion of his own poetical talent. Meanwhile, the suffragette Mary Datchet is in love with Ralph Denham, a lawyer and journalist from a lowly background, who in turn feels more attracted to Katherine. As the stories and the romantic interests of these four young people evolve and intertwine, a picture emerges of a society still obsessed with class and hung up on the social mores of the Victorian era. By far the most accessible and traditional of all Virginia Woolf's novels, Night and Day, is a powerful evocation of a fast-changing world and, though conventional in style, addresses many of the author's recurring preoccupations, such as the role of women in society and the difficulties in reconciling love and marriage.