A collection of essays by Virginia Woolf, some of which originally appeared in the Times Literary Supplement or the Dial, and others were originally published for the first time in this volume.

"Anything that Virginia Woolf may have to say about letters is of more than ordinary interest, for her peculiar intelligence and informed attitude set her somewhat apart. She possesses the happy faculty simultaneously of enjoying and accepting the work of Daniel De Foe and James Joyce, of Joseph Addison and T.S. Eliot, of Jane Austen and Marcel Proust. Many of these essays are excellent examples of that type of writing which reveals the reactions, nuances, twisting and adventuring threads of thought and surmise which spring from the perusal and spiritual acquisition of other work."
Excerpts from the New York Times Book Review of The Common Reader, May 31, 1925