Between the Acts | Fiction - www.zzdbook.com

Between the Acts

Nov 25, 2025 9:41 PM

Author:Virginia Woolf,Gillian Beer,Stella McNichol,Gillian Beer

Between the Acts

'One of the great writers of the twentieth century' Guardian

It is June in 1939, and the inhabitants of a country house prepare to host the annual village pageant in its grounds. It will tell the stories of English history, as it does every year. Yet the coming of war broods over the whole community, changing the meaning of past and present, and heralding a new act. Through her characters' passionate musings and private dramas, and through the enigmatic figure of the pageant's author, Miss La Trobe, Virginia Woolf's playful final novel both celebrates and mocks Englishness, and re-creates the elusive role of the artist.

Edited by Stella McNichol with an Introduction and Notes by Gillian Beer

Reviews

A work of art

—— Irish Times

Gemmell is several rungs above the good - right into the fabulous

—— Anne McCaffrey

Has everything a fan of heroic fantasy could desire

—— Stephen Donaldson

I am truly amazed at David Gemmell's ability to focus his writer's eye. His images are crisp and complete, a history lesson woven within the detailed tapestry of the highest adventure. Gemmell's characters are no less complete, real men and women with qualities good and bad, placed in trying times and rising to heroism or falling victim to their own weaknesses

—— R. A. Salvatore, author of Mortalis

Gemmell is very talented; his characters are vivid and very convincingly realistic

—— Christopher Stasheff, author of the Wizard of Rhyme novels

'Delights, amuses, moves and angers you with the lightest of touches. It is, as might be said of Cadence herself, a small masterpiece'

—— Simon Callow , Vogue

'Wonderful, funny, poignant and gutsy...you can feel the author's huge and hurt and loving heart beat on every page'

—— Anne Lamott , Mademoiselle

'An intensely enjoyable novel about friendship and prejudice: the dialogue is word perfect, the psycology laser fine, and there are some terrific jokes... but no synopsis can do justice to this glorious book'

—— David Profumo , Weekend Telegraph

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