Virginia Woolf’s third novel is an unconventional literary portrait of its title character—an awkward but strangely fascinating young man coming of age in the years leading up to the First World War—that is pervaded throughout by a sense that “nobody sees any one as he is”. Jacob’s Room marks a radical departure from the conventions of realist fiction by seeking to evoke the experiential texture of human cognition and urban modernity in an entirely new way. Endlessly surprising and inventive in its handling of narrative perspective, this is one of the central achievements of modern English literature.
