'I shall never forget the day I wrote ''The Mark on
the Wall'' - all in a flash, as if flying, after being
kept stone breaking for months. ''The Unwritten Novel''
was the great discovery, however. That - again in one
second - showed me how I could embody all my deposit of
experience in a shape that fitted it...I saw, branching
out of the tunnel I made, when I discovered that method
of approach, Jacob's Room, Mrs Dalloway etc - How I
trembled with excitement.' The thrill Woolf got from
these stories is readily apparent to the reader. She
wrote them in defiance of convention, with a heady
feeling of liberation and with a clear sense that she
was breaking new ground. Indeed, if she had not made her
bold and experimental forays into the short story in the
period leading up to the publication of Jacob's Room
(1922), it seems certain that her arrival as a great
modernist novelist would have been delayed. Quirky,
unrestrained, disturbing and surprising, many of these
stories, particularly the early ones, are essential to
an understanding of Woolf's development as a writer. She
thought some of her short fiction might be 'unprintable'
but, happily, she was mistaken.ABOUT THE SERIES: For
over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made
available the widest range of literature from around the
globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's
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