Jacob's Room is Virginia Woolf's modernist novel, tracing the life of Jacob Flanders from boyhood to young adulthood through the impressions of those around him. It is a lyrical, experimental portrait of character and pre-war England, rewarding to listen to for its vivid prose and shifting perspectives.
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Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
Produced by David Moynihan, Juliet Sutherland, Charles
Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
Jacob's Room
VIRGINIA WOOLF
CHAPTER ONE
"So of course," wrote Betty Flanders, pressing her heels rather deeper in the sand, "there was nothing for it but to leave."
Slowly welling from the point of her gold nib, pale blue ink dissolved the full stop; for there her pen stuck; her eyes fixed, and tears slowly filled them. The entire bay quivered; the lighthouse wobbled; and she had the illusion that the mast of Mr. Connor's little yacht was bending like a wax candle in the sun. She winked quickly.
Accidents were awful things. She winked again. The mast was straight; the waves were regular; the lighthouse was upright; but the blot had spread.
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