This Week 100 Years Ago: Headlines from 05 14, 2025
Stepping Back to 1925
Every Wednesday here in 2025, we hop into our time-machine of words and revisit the headlines of exactly a century ago. On 14 May 1925, the air in London smelled faintly of coal smoke and spring rain, radios were still a novelty, and the Jazz Age was in full swing. While the world was dancing the Charleston, one quiet revolution arrived not on a bandstand but in a slim, beautifully typeset book.
The Day Mrs Dalloway Walked into Bookshops (14 May 1925)
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On this very Thursday in 1925, Hogarth Press released Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs Dalloway.” Shoppers wandering past the modest storefront in Richmond, London, could pick up the novel for seven shillings and sixpence. Few guessed they were holding a landmark of modernist literature.
What made it revolutionary?
- Stream-of-consciousness narration let us slip directly into Clarissa Dalloway’s thoughts as she ordered flowers and planned her evening party.
- Woolf stitched one ordinary June day into a tapestry of memory, trauma, and social critique, capturing the lingering psychic wounds of World War I.
- London itself became a character, its bells, cars, and advertisements flowing in and out of the protagonists’ minds.
Ripples into the future
- Writers from Toni Morrison to Kazuo Ishiguro cite Woolf’s innovations as foundational.
- Mental-health awareness—so central to Septimus Warren Smith’s tragic storyline—resonates powerfully in 2025’s ongoing conversations about PTSD and wellness apps.
1925 vs. 2025
| 1925 | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Books sold largely in brick-and-mortar shops; reviews arrived days later in print. | Launches trend instantly on #BookTok, and Woolf’s prose is sampled in AI-generated reading companions. |
| Women authors still fought for critical recognition in a male-dominated industry. | Women now top bestseller lists globally, though parity in literary awards remains a work-in-progress. |
One hundred years on, “Mrs Dalloway” still invites us to pause, notice the singing of birds over a busy city street, and ask how private thoughts intersect with the public world—a question that TikTok feeds and push notifications make ever more urgent today.
Why This Matters Now
• Woolf’s interest in mental health prefigures today’s focus on mindfulness apps and four-day workweeks.
• Her critique of class divides feels timely as the 2020s debate remote-work privilege and universal basic income.
• The novel’s exploration of LGBTQ+ identity (through Clarissa’s feelings for Sally Seton) resonates in current battles for global equality.
So as you scroll through news on a foldable phone or an AR visor, spare a thought for the slim, ink-and-paper volume that first appeared on a spring morning 100 years ago. Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself—and in doing so, she bought herself a place in literary history.