Virginia Woolf's novel "To the Lighthouse" was published in 1927. The story is built around the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920.
Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists such as James Joyce and Marcel Proust, the plot of "To the Lighthouse" is secondary to its philosophical introspection.
The novel includes little dialogue and almost no action. Most of it is written as thoughts and observations. The novel recalls childhood emotions and highlights adult relationships. Among the book's many themes are those of loss, subjectivity, the nature of art and the problem of perception.
In 1998, the Modern Library named "To the Lighthouse" Number 15 on its list of the "100 best English-language novels of 20th century".
In 2005, the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels since 1923.
