To the Lighthouse

To the Lighthouse

First edition
Author	Virginia Woolf
Cover artist	Vanessa Bell
Language	English
Genre	Modernism
Publisher	Hogarth Press
Publication date	5 May 1927
Publication place	United Kingdom
Preceded by	Mrs Dalloway
Followed by	Orlando: A Biography
Text	To the Lighthouse at Wikisource

To the Lighthouse is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centres on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920.

Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, the plot of To the Lighthouse is secondary to its philosophical introspection. Cited as a key example of the literary technique of multiple focalisation, the novel includes little dialogue and almost no direct action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations. To the Lighthouse is made of three powerfully charged visions into the life of the Ramsay family—maternal Mrs. Ramsay, highbrow Mr. Ramsay, and their eight children—who live in a summer house off the rocky coast of Scotland. From Mr. Ramsay's seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby lighthouse, Virginia Woolf examines tensions and allegiances and shows that the small joys and quiet tragedies of everyday life could go on forever. The novel recalls childhood emotions and highlights adult relationships. Among the book's many tropes and themes are those of loss, subjectivity, the nature of art, and the problem of perception.

In 1998, the Modern Library named To the Lighthouse No. 15 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.^[1] In 2005, the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels since 1923.^[2]