The Common Reader' is a collection of essays by Virginia Woolf, published in two series, the first in 1925 and the second in 1932. The title indicates Woolf's intention that her essays be read by the educated but non-scholarly "common reader," who examines books for personal enjoyment. Woolf outlines her literary philosophy in the introductory essay to the first series, "The Common Reader," and in the concluding essay to the second series, "How Should One Read a Book?" The first series includes essays on Geoffrey Chaucer, Michel de Montaigne, Jane Austen, George Eliot, and Joseph Conrad, as well as discussions of the Greek language and the modern essay. The second series features essays on John Donne, Daniel Defoe, Dorothy Osborne, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Thomas Hardy, among others. Table of Contents: โข Chapter 1 -- The Common Reader โข Chapter 2 -- The Pastons and Chaucer โข Chapter 3 -- On Not Knowing Greek โข Chapter 4 -- The Elizabethan Lumber Room โข Chapter 5 -- Notes on an Elizabethan Play โข Chapter 6 -- Montaigne โข Chapter 7 -- The Duchess of Newcastle โข Chapter 8 -- Rambling Round Evelyn โข Chapter 9 -- Defoe โข Chapter 10 -- Addison โข Chapter 11 -- The Lives of the Obscure โข Chapter 12 -- Jane Austen โข Chapter 13 -- Modern Fiction โข Chapter 14 -- "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" โข Chapter 15 -- George Eliot โข Chapter 16 -- The Russian Point of View โข Chapter 17 -- Outlines โข Chapter 18 -- The Patron and the Crocus โข Chapter 19 -- The Modern Essay โข Chapter 20 -- Joseph Conrad โข Chapter 21 -- How it Strikes a Contemporary Adeline Virginia Woolf (25 January 1882 โ 28 March 1941) was an English writer who is considered one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.