Orlando

First masculine, then feminine, Orlando is a young sixteenth-century nobleman who gallops through the centuries, from Elizabethan England and imperial Turkey to Virginia Woolf-s own time. Will he find happiness with the exotic Russian princess Sasha? Or is the dashing explorer Shelmerdine the ideal man? And what form will Orlando take on the journey - a nobleman, traveller, writer? Man or . . . woman?

Written for the charismatic, bisexual writer Vita Sackville-West, Orlando is one of Woolf-s most popular and accessible novels, a playful mock biography of a chameleon-like historical figure that is both a wry commentary on gender and, in Woolf-s own words, a ''writer-s holiday'' that delights in its ambiguity and capriciousness.