Having loved studying and presenting on Mrs Dalloway during my undergraduate, Mendelson’s ode to the classic and brilliant novel brings academic discourses of the text into the public domain for all those interested. The work contains a clear through, accessible to those outside of academia, whilst appeasing and going into more depth of the text than a journal article or short form analysis would. A truly palatable read of a book that’s captured readers for a century without being reductive to a singular idea. Short, snappy, and well informed and researched. You can tell this is a passion project of someone who adores the original text.

This is a lovely tribute to Mendelson's admiration of Mrs Dalloway. Based on three lectures, the verbal origin of these pieces can be felt as the structure can be loose with diversions into other material. I'd say this is aimed at a general or undergraduate audience - it draws attention to some well-researched areas: the medical/psychiatric theme; the doubling between Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith; light attention to issues of empire and poltical power. There are gestures towards less discussed themes: that of siblings, the importance of clothing and flowers, but, sadly, these are just noted before moving on.

The framing of this as a counter-Odyssey works well in the first section but is then left behind which is a shame - I particularly liked the reading of Peter's descent into a version of the underworld here. There are some nice uses of Woolf's (rather preciously Mendelson decides to call her Virginia Woolf in full all the way through, claiming she would have hated to be known merely by surname as is scholarly convention) letters, diary entries and essays even if they are the particularly well-known extracts.

There is an immensely useful essay at the end on the 1925 and 1929 editions and editorial changes that I greatly appreciated. I also love the nod to the original cover design of the book. All in all, a slightly mixed bag of a book - but we can't have too much admiration of Mrs Dalloway in this, her centennial year!