The Waves traces the lives and interactions of seven friends in an exploratory and sensuous narrative. The Waves was conceived and written during a highly political phase in Woolfs career, when she was speaking on issues of gender and of class. This was also the period when her love affair with Vita Sackville-West was at its most intense. The work is often described as if it were the product of a secluded, disembodied sensibility. Yet its writing is supremely engaged and engaging, providing an experience which the reader is unlikely to forget.