delightful fluffy essays about slices of London life in the 1930s ( )

An intimate look at London and Londoners from a writer who left us much, much too soon. ( )

If you enjoyed Orlando you should enjoy this as well. Both are about Englishness and both, to a certain extent, literature. ( )

Loved it. Woolf captures 1930s London in six essays in the same manner as she writes I her novels. The docks become become a thing of complex art, Oxford Street a bustling center of materialism, the House of Commons become democracy for the common man. This is Orlando for the city of London

First printed as a series for Good Housekeeping magazine in 1931 and 1932 ( )

This is a short collection of five essays about London: The Docks of London, Oxford Street Tide, Great Men's Houses, Abbeys and Cathedrals, and This is the House of Commons.These diverse stories give us an idea of how much time has passed since they were written, how much has changed, how much remains unchanged. Through Woolf's eyes, I can share her view of London, together with a mental image of the metamorphosis to the modern city.

Woolf's lyrical prose is so enticing that the reader is happy to read the same page over and over before reluctantly moving on.

About Westminster Abbey she writes "The company seems to be in full conclave. Gladstone starts forward and then Disraeli. From every corner, from every wall, somebody leans or listens or bends forward as if about to speak. The recumbent even seem to lie attentive, as if to rise next minute. Their hands nervously grasp their sceptres, their lips are compressed for a fleeting silence, their eyes lightly closed as if for a moment's thought."

"Voice and organ vibrate wirily among the chasings and intricacies of the roof. The fine fans of stone that spread themselves to make a ceiling seem like bare boughs withered of all their leaves and about to toss in the wintry gale. But their austerity is beautifully softened. Lights and shadows are changing and conflicting every moment. Blue, gold and violet pass, dappling, quickening, fading. The grey stone, ancient as it is, changes like a live thing under the incessant ripple of changing light" ( )