Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel To the Lighthouse receives a trigger warning from publishers due to concerns about past attitudes and language.
- Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel To the Lighthouse will be published with a disclaimer
- The publisher will warn readers that the opinions of the book reflect the ‘attitudes of the time’
A Virginia Woolf novel will now be published with a “trigger warning” about concerns about the “attitudes” outlined in the 1927 book.
The British author’s novel ‘To the Lighthouse’ will include a disclaimer for US readers warning them about the book’s contents.
Woolf’s semi-autobiographical novel tells the stories of the trips taken by the Ramsay family to their summer home on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.
However, a new edition, published by Vintage, will be preceded by a statement explaining that the decision to print the novel in its original form is not an “endorsement” of the “cultural depictions or language” used in Woolf’s book. .
Instead, the publisher explains that the views expressed in the novel, which is considered a classic of modernist literature, reflect the “attitudes of the time.”
Virginia Woolf’s (pictured) 1927 novel To the Lighthouse will now be published with a disclaimer about the book’s contents.
“This book was published in 1927 and reflects the attitudes of its day,” the new disclaimer reads.
“The publisher’s decision to present it as originally published is not intended to endorse the cultural representations or language contained in this document,” it adds.
It is unclear what “attitudes” expressed in Woolf’s novel prompted the publisher’s decision to include a disclaimer.
Professor Mark Husey of Rice University told The Telegraph that the ‘notion of a warning to readers of potential offense in this novel [is] pretty ridiculous’.
The novel is widely known for using modernist literary techniques in its depiction of the Ramsay family and their visits to the Inner Hebrides in the lead up to and immediately after the First World War.
The book is based on Woolf’s own childhood experiences visiting St Ives in Cornwall and seeing the nearby Godrevy Lighthouse around which the events of her 1927 novel are based.
Vintage Books is a New York-based paperback publisher owned by British-American publishing giant Penguin Random House.
Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel To the Lighthouse is based on her experiences visiting St Ives in Cornwall and seeing the nearby Godrevy Lighthouse around which the events of her book are based.
Recently published UK editions of Virginia Woolf’s books (pictured) contain no disclaimers or content warnings.
The release of the new edition of Vintage comes after the book entered the public domain in 2023.
No warnings or disclaimers were included in the latest edition of ‘To the Lighthouse’ to be published in the UK, in 2019.
Similarly, a recently republished edition of Woolf’s 1931 novel The Waves was published in Britain without any warning about its contents.
The warning in Woolf’s book comes after Vintage last year published a new edition of Ernst Hemingway’s masterpiece ‘The Sun Also Rises’ with a similar warning to readers about the contents of the winning author’s 1926 book. of the Nobel prize.
Born in London in 1882, Woolf wrote nine novels between 1915 and 1941, before her death at age 59.
MailOnline has contacted Vintage Books for comment.
