Orlando: A Biography is an influential novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on 11 October 1928. A semi-biographical novel based in part on the life of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West, it is generally considered one of Woolf's most accessible novels. The novel has been influential stylistically, and is considered important in literature generally, and particularly in the history of women's writing and gender studies. A film adaptation was released in 1992, starring Tilda Swinton as Orlando and Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth I. Orlando tells the story of a young man named Orlando, born... in England during the reign of Elizabeth I, who decides not to grow old. He is briefly a lover to the elderly queen, but after her death has a brief, intense love affair with Sasha, a princess in the entourage of the Russian embassy. This episode, of love and excitement against the background of the Great Frost, is one of the best known, and is said to represent Vita Sackville-West's affair with Violet Trefusis. Following Sasha's sudden, unwarned departure and return to Russia, the desolate, heartbroken Orlando returns to writing The Oak Tree, a poem started and abandoned in his youth.
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| Author: | Virginia Woolf |
| Genre: | Speculative fiction |
| Year published: | 1928 |
| Number of editions: | 11 |