Pointed Roofs

About This Book

Published in 1915, Pointed Roofs is the first novel in Pilgrimage, a thirteen-volume novel sequence by Dorothy Richardson (1873–1957). It follows Miriam Henderson, a young Englishwoman who takes a teaching position at a girls' school in Hanover, Germany. Through Miriam's perceptions — recorded in a continuous, moment-by-moment flow of consciousness — Richardson captures the texture of everyday experience with a radicalness that startled contemporary readers. Pointed Roofs is widely considered one of the earliest stream-of-consciousness novels in English, predating both James Joyce's Ulysses and Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. The work is in the public domain.

Excerpt

Miriam left the gaslit hall and went slowly upstairs. The March twilight lay upon the landings, but the staircase was almost dark. The top landing was quite dark and silent. There was no one about.— Opening of Pointed Roofs

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