Written in Virginia Woolf’s signature stream-of-consciousness style, this short story offers readers a glimpse into the intricate workings of the human mind through a seemingly ordinary train journey.

As an unnamed narrator travels from London to the South Coast of England, she creates fictional lives for the other passengers aboard the train. Focusing her attention on the woman sitting across from her, she constructs an elaborate story, inventing a new identity for the stranger, weaving together fragments of imagination and reality based purely on the look in her eyes. This brief yet powerful narrative explores the boundaries between fiction and reality, revealing how the stories we tell ourselves can shape our perceptions of others.

An Unwritten Novel was first published in 1920, written by Woolf in defence of her new, distinctive stream-of-consciousness method. This short story is open to many interpretations and analyses, not to be missed by collectors of Woolf’s work. This new Read & Co. Classics edition is complete with the introductory essay ‘How Should One Read a Book?’.