Orlando Author:Virginia Woolf In this spirited and thoroughly original fantasy - a mock biography complete with photographs and detailed index - Virginia Woolf created a character liberated from the restraints of time and gender. Born a young nobleman in the sixteenth century, Orlando is a favorite at the court of Queen Elizabeth. Three centuries later, as the novel ends, Or... more »lando is a woman. The hero/heroine ages little but sees monarchs come and go, hobnobs with the great literary figures of every age, and slips in and out of each new fashion. Inspired by Woolf's love for the poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West, the novel was called by Nigel Nicholson "the longest and most charming love letter in literature." Orlando skewers society's limiting definitions of the sexes in such a sparkling way that it remains as fresh and provocative as when it was written. "[Woolf's] great gifts of language and intuition are joined in this book with a deep-lying sense of humor, and a wit that plays like summer lightning," said The Atlantic.« less