Orlando (Vintage Classics Woolf Series)

　　歐蘭朵在三十歲之前是男人，之後變成女人，就此持續下去……

　　《歐蘭朵》是書中同名主角特異的生平故事。身為英國貴族，歐蘭朵確有著許多奇異的人生體驗，他飽受愛人遠離的折磨，想將人生寄情於詩作的他卻又遭受無情的批評。心灰意冷的他於是遠赴土耳其君士坦丁堡擔任大使。功勞顯赫的他被國王封為公爵，不料他卻在受勳之夜昏迷不醒，醒來後竟發現自己變成了女人……。

　　歐蘭朵的一生跨越三個世紀，經歷兩種性別，場景橫跨歐亞兩大陸，更置身於無數的角色變換中。他先是男人，而後是女人；先是愛人，而後被愛；先是拋棄別人，而後被拋棄。他是一個充滿活力的男人、一位詩人、一位懂時尚的女人，也是一位傳統維多利亞時代女性。作者維吉妮亞．吳爾芙將這部內容豐富、語氣恢諧、機智的作品獻給激進的小說家兼詩人、也是她的摯友，著名的「西辛赫斯特花園」的創造者——薇塔．薩克維爾—魏斯特。本書以嘲諷的筆調將所謂「偉大男人」的傳統歷史重新寫出，並回顧幾個世紀以來的文學思潮，是二十世紀最重要的女性主義作品之一。不過照吳爾芙自己的說法，它也是「一個玩笑…… 一個作家的假期」，一部讀之令人心喜的作品。

　　中文簡介擷取自中譯本《歐蘭朵》，遊目族出版

　　Virginia Woolf's most unusual and fantastic creation, a funny, exuberant tale that examines the very nature of sexuality

作者簡介

維吉妮亞．吳爾芙（Virginia Woof ）

　　1882 年出生於倫敦。1904 年，父親的去世讓她首度精神崩潰，之後她便與兄姊搬往布倫伯利，並與一群作家與藝術家合組了一個團體，這些人當中包括她未來的先生雷納德（Leonard Woolf）。吳爾芙的精神疾病發作時，都是由雷納德在身旁照顧，他並且鼓勵她在內心平靜時寫作。吳爾芙寫作風格強烈，她運用內心獨白——也就是著名的「意識流」——及如詩般的象徵主義手法，以及對角色而非情節的強調進行文學創作，並在晚期小說，如《戴洛維夫人》、《燈塔行》、《海浪》等作品中有更進一步的發展。其他作品則包括以《普通讀者》為名的兩集散文集；一部奇特的虛構傳記《歐蘭朵》；兩本女性主義文集《自己的房間》和《三枚金幣》等。吳爾芙為二十世紀最重要的女性小說家、文學評論家，以及散文家之一，但持續的心理疾病最後迫使她在 1941 年投河自盡，結束痛苦卻燦爛的一生。

　　Virginia Woolf was born in London in 1882, the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, first editor of The Dictionary of National Biography. After his death in 1904 Virginia and her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell, moved to Bloomsbury and became the centre of 'The Bloomsbury Group'. This informal collective of artists and writers which included Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry, exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture.

　　In 1912 Virginia married Leonard Woolf, a writer and social reformer. Three years later, her first novel The Voyage Out was published, followed by Night and Day (1919) and Jacob's Room (1922). These first novels show the development of Virginia Woolf's distinctive and innovative narrative style. It was during this time that she and Leonard Woolf founded The Hogarth Press with the publication of the co-authored Two Stories in 1917, hand-printed in the dining room of their house in Surrey.

　　Between 1925 and 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces, from Mrs Dalloway (1925) to the poetic and highly experimental novel The Waves (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism, short fiction, journalism and biography, including the playfully subversive Orlando (1928) and A Room of One's Own (1929) a passionate feminist essay. This intense creative productivity was often matched by periods of mental illness, from which she had suffered since her mother's death in 1895. On 28 March 1941, a few months before the publication of her final novel, Between the Acts, Virginia Woolf committed suicide.