Virginia Woolf

An Unwritten Novel Illustrated Virginia Woolf

'An Unwritten Novel' doesn't really have a 'plot' as such, but its substance can be summarized as follows. The female narrator is travelling on the train from London to the south coast. She is a people-watcher, and takes an interest in her fellow passengers, all of whom are trying to avoid making eye contact with the other people in the carriage. All, that is, except one: a woman sitting across from the narrator, who stares straight ahead, and who, the narrator surmises, harbors some secret. She builds up a 'picture' of the woman: unmarried, childless, going to visit her sister-in-law at Eastbound. She believes that 'Minnie' has committed some sort of crime, memories of which she carries around with her, and decides that the dark secret Minnie carries around with her is that she was negligent when looking after her baby brother, and left him unattended, with the result that he died from scalding.