The Waves

Author: Virginia Woolf

Classic fiction (pre c 1945)

Published on 3 November 2026 by Penguin Books Ltd (Penguin Classics) in the United Kingdom

Paperback | 288 pages
195 x 128 x 15 | 214g

'Clear, bright, burnished ... the moods that it expresses are a true kind of poetry' The New York TimesTracing the lives of a group of friends, The Waves follows their development from childhood to middle age. While social events, individual achievements and disappointments form its narrative, the novel is most remarkable for the rich poetic language that expresses the inner life of its characters: their aspirations, their triumphs and regrets, their awareness of unity and isolation, and their questioning of the meaning of life itself. Perhaps more than any of Woolf's novels, The Waves conveys the endless complexities of human experience.

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Kate Flint