Includes bibliographies and index.

In 'Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown' Virginia Woolf writes. "On or about December 1910 human nature changed." When Virginia Woolf made this pronouncement, she was aware of the changes taking place in every sphere of life. She attacked the Edwardians particularly Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy and H.G. Wells for their inability to recognise the nature of changes in human psyche. With her keen sense of shifts on the plane of ideas and values, she sought for a new emotional perspective in viewing the world of her times.
Virginia Woolf approached life from a distinct point of view. We find a unified vision of life emerging from each of her novels. It is the vision of life that finds consistent expression in all her works and its overall suggestion regarding the nature of the world is clearly tragic.
Almost each of Virginia Woolf's novels is analytical meditation on the nature of life and death. Her concern with contemporary social problems and her experience about modern society is nothing but tragic. The recurrent theme of her novels is the hostility of life itself to her ideal. The rumblings of the first World War may be heard almost everywhere in the early novels. The later novels offer clear evidence of the impact of the second Worl War on her consciousness. Virginia Woolf's strong sense of resentment against totalitarianism finds expression also in the novels written during this dark phase of human history.
This critical study is an attempt to understand a new Virginia Woolf in the light of her vision of life.