Book - the complete shorter fiction of Virginia Woolf

Book- the complete shorter fiction of Virginia Woolf
Author: Virginia Woolf (and edited by Susan Dick)
Score: /10
Year:  1989 (my second edition) ; 1985 (first edition). Stories from 1906-1941. 
Publisher : Harvest ISBN : 0-15-621250-1
346 pages 

Language : English 
(note :my copy has a similar cover but with Virginia's name in green font). 


Between my numerous other current readings, I started this one a couple months ago and enjoy Virginia's stream of consciousness writing style. I had already read a room of one's own, as well as a couple other short fiction collections, but the special interest of this one is that Susan Dick's edition presents all the stories in the chronological order, thus giving an insight at the evolution of Virginia Woolf's writing. 


It's easy to see her typical style right from the very first short story dated 1906, Phyllis and Rosamond. 

I've read just over a third of this book, and I do take the time to read every short story - even those I'd already read before, just so I can place them in their right order. 

There are 47 short stories, organised in 4 periods : 


Early stories, 5 of them. I note that these early ones are the longest, in general, from 6 to 30 pages long, whilst in subsequent periods her short stories tend to be much shorter. I suppose to her battles with mental illness have given her difficulties concentrating for longer stories, or that her inspiration just happened to create shorter ones... 


1917-1921, starts with the wonderful The mark on the wall which I enjoyed all 3 times I read it thus far. There are a total of 11 short stories in this period, and they are between 2 and 12 pages long only, significantly shorter than her first period. 

1922-1925 proposes 13 short stories, a couple have just 2 pages, but most are about 8 - a little more uniformity in this period for that level. 

17 stories from her last period, 1926-41, closing with the watering place. Again, 2 to 8 pages long.

I plan to tell you a bit of each story later, but for the moment, more about the book. 

It proposes an introduction, notes on the second edition, editorial procedures and acknowledgements, followed from page 17 to 293 by the stories, and finishes with Notes and appendices : abbreviations, notes, and 5 appendices.

On this first chronological reading, I don't want to risk any spoilers from the notes, so I don't read them at all.

I can, however, tell you that Virginia Woolf sometimes expanded from her own short stories into larger works of fiction. Such is the case for Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street, a short story from 1923, and the unfinished The prime Minister (which isn't included here), became the novel Mrs Dalloway, published in 1925, and which is on my reading list for later. 


Overall, I usually enjoy her style and her topics often revolve around solitude and depression (Virginia suffered from mental illness including depression), but thus far one of her short stories keeps eluding me : The evening party, in which the sequence of dialogues is dense and I don't know who utters each sentence after a couple pages...it could be an intentional, brillant writing to showcase that at parties, sooner or later one looses concentration as discussions overlap...