Virginia Woolf is well known as one of the most prominent fiction writers of the twentieth century, what may be less well known is her astounding collection of letters and essays. Here is the collection first published in 1925, aimed at `the Common reader`, Woolf produced an eccentric and personal literary and social history of European thought in her own unique style, this collection helped cement Woolf as one of the most popular writers of her time. The Common Reader, The Pastons and Chaucer, On Not Knowing Greek, The Elizabethan Lumber Room, Notes On an Elizabethan Play, Montaigne, The Duchess of Newcastle, Rambling Round Evelyn, Defoe, Addison, The Lives of the Obscure, Jane Austen, Modern Fiction, “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights”, George Eliot, The Russian Point of View, Outlines, The Patron and the Crocus, The Modern Essay, Joseph Conrad, How It Strikes a Contemporary