Due to my long-lasting admiration for Michael Cunningham’s extraordinary book The Hours, which started several years ago when I discovered the stunning movie of the same title, I have decided to dig deeper and analyze this literary masterpiece, looking closely at its actual origins; Virginia Woolf’s powerful 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway, and the genuine life story of the famous author itself. The Hours could not exist without these fundamental, underlying bases that made it not only possible to redefine and properly modernize Mrs. Dalloway, including all its initial themes, but also to draw upon an enormous collection of characters, events and symbols, to create what The Hours successfully depicts: a subtle, beautiful book with a rich background. These three components - Virginia Woolf’s life, her work (represented by her most important novel Mrs. Dalloway) and the modern adaption of both, The Hours - are tied closely together, and it is a truly interesting experience to explore all the parallels between them. This is also the reason I chose this as my special topic for the Matura, and on the following pages you will be able to discover the myriad connections I found these books had.

Note: This is the brief introduction to my special topic for English, along with its cover; I’ve already written about six pages, which means there are about nine pages left that I have to write. Okay, I better get back to work now. It’s really inspiring though; I’m researching, structuring, designing and most importantly of course writing this special topic while either having The Hours run in the background (the movie, of course) or listening to Philipp Glass’ majestic score. For all of you interested; the final file will be downloadable as a PDF file as soon as it’s finished.