Mrs. Dalloway chronicles a June day in the life of Clarissa Dallowayâa day that is taken up with running minor errands in preparation for a party and that is punctuated, toward the end, by the suicide of a young man she has never met. In giving an apparently ordinary day such immense resonance and significanceâinfusing it with the elemental conflict between death and lifeâVirginia Woolf triumphantly discovers her distinctive style as a novelist. Originally published in 1925, Mrs. Dalloway is Woolfâs first complete rendering of what she described as the âluminous envelopeâ of consciousness: a dazzling display of the mindâs inside as it plays over the brilliant surface and darker depths of reality.