Widely acclaimed since its first publication in 1927, Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse' is a novel whose overt simplicity of plot hides a complex mix of autobiographical detail, searching social questions and deep philosophical enigmas. The author's innovative use of nonlinear plot, stream- of-consciousness, and varying narrators, transforms the apparently 'normal' incidents in the life of the Ramsay family into a mythic reflection on time, gender, morality, and death. Woolf considered 'To the Lighthouse' to be "easily the best of my books," a judgment with which serious students of literature can only concur.