Clarissa Dalloway is preparing to give a party. Over the course of one day, as she readies her house, Clarissa is flooded with memories and re-examines the choices she has made over the course of her life. Virginia Woolf started writing Mrs Dalloway in 1922 as a short story. Its publication in 1925 was met with modest commercial success but the novel went on to become one of the most vital works of literature of the last century.