Virginia Woolf's lyrical, nostalgic novel centres at first on a family holiday in Skye where the subtle shifts of tension and affection between the Ramsays and their guests are delicately explored.

James, the youngest son of Mr and Mrs Ramsay has a devout wish to visit the lighthouse, but his father, a rather pompous, philosophical man, seems determined to disappoint him. it is only many years later, when the war has brought dramatic changes to society and to the Ramsay famih, in particular that the journey is made under very difl'erent circumstances.

Virginia Woolf's extraordinary novel is both an elegy to her parents, whom she depicts as the Ramsavs with a poignant accuracy, and an eloquent lament for a lost world, even if that world contained its own sorrows and disappointments.