Mrs. Dalloway, The Common Reader, and To the Lighthouse were all recognized as revolutionary, solid productions. The fiction was an attempt to reveal the mystery and magic of personality beneath the skin of human beings, yet it was not until after Orlando was published in 1928 that Virginia began to receive real monetary reward from her writings. She was 47 years old and had written for nearly 27 years. Also, it was not until Orlando that her work became popular with the public. The critics recognized Virginia Woolf’s importance, discriminating people bought and read her novels, libraries acquired them, but the public found them difficult. Orlando was a breakthrough, an extravagant novel tracing the reincarnation of its main character—as various men and women—throughout the ages of English history and literature.
Following Orlando’s success was The Waves (1931), a complex prose poem taking place almost entirely within the minds of its characters with a counterpoint evocation of waves and the sea; Flush (1933), a biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dog; and The Years (1937), a major best seller, both in England and America, Virginia Woolf’s last novel, Between the Acts, was published posthumously. She had finished a first draft but she was unsatisfied. No doubt she would have continued to cut and revise and polish had she lived; with all her novels she was a merciless perfectionist. But she felt her old sickness returning. During most of 1940, insomnia and nervousness grated at her, and one day in March, 1941, she wrote a note to Leonard: she felt that she was going mad and did not have the courage to battle the voices and delusions again. She acknowledged Leonard’s goodness and his continuous, kind care. While she was writing the note, Leonard passed her worktable and reminded her that it was nearing lunchtime. A little later, he called to her but there was no answer. He went to look for her and found her hat and her walking stick on the river bank. She had drowned herself.
