Virginia Woolf1

To the Lighthouse (1927) is a novel by Virginia Woolf. The freely, multiply discursive tale centers on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920. To the Lighthouse follows and extends the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, where the plot is secondary to philosophical introspection, and the prose can be winding and hard to follow. The novel includes little dialogue and almost no action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations of the major characters. Foremost among these characters are Lily Briscoe, whose observations on the Ramsay family form the backbone of the book, and Mrs. Ramsay. The novel recalls the power of childhood emotions and highlights the impermanence of adult relationships. One of the book's several themes is the ubiquity of transience.