The Hours

By Michael Cunningham

Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and Pen Faulkner prize. Made into an Oscar-winning film, ‘The Hours’ is a daring and deeply affecting novel inspired by the life and work of Virginia Woolf.

In 1920s London, Virginia Woolf is fighting against her rebellious spirit as she attempts to make a start on her new novel.

A young wife and mother, broiling in a suburb of 1940s Los Angeles, yearns to escape and read her precious copy of ‘Mrs Dalloway’.

And Clarissa Vaughan steps out of her smart Greenwich village apartment in 1990s New York to buy flowers for a party she is hosting for a dying friend.

Moving effortlessly across the decades and between England and America, this exquisite novel intertwines the stories of three unforgettable women.

Format: Paperback
Release Date: 02 Jan 2003
Pages: 240
ISBN: 978-1-84115-035-2
Michael Cunningham was raised in Los Angeles and now lives in New York. His first novel, A Home at the End of the World, was published in 1990 and his second, Flesh and Blood, in 1995. His work has been published in the New Yorker.

”''The Hours' is a book which heightens the perception of the reader. Cunningham’s craftsmanship is overwhelming.” - Robert Farren, Independent on Sunday

”'An extremely moving, original and memorable novel.” - Hermione Lee, TLS

”'Engrossing, imaginative and humane.” - Richard Francis, Observer

”''The Hours' refracts the lives of three women through the prism of a single day. Michael Cunningham evokes these three discrete characters with rare skill.” - Financial Times

”'The concept behind the novel is bold, the execution rich with feeling.” - Helen Dunmore, The Times

”'A sensitive marriage of intelligence, integrity and finely textured emotions.” - Sunday Times

”'Cunningham has found an American tone which is exhilaratingly modern - tense, tender and completely without strain.” - Guardian