Almost a hundred a years ago, a publishing company brought out a little book about a student teacher in Germany. The name of the book was 'Pointed Roofs' and the author's name was Dorothy M Richardson. The story was narrated through the consciousness of the heroine. This new style made the readers perplexed. Critics found it difficult to convey the charm of the book. It was the first book to be labelled stream of consciousness, even though Richardson hated that phrase. But the stream of consciousness became a literary genre which was later found in the novels of Virginia Woolf especially Mrs Dalloway. Today, four authors are interlinked because of this literary genre - James Joyce, Woolf, Marcel Proust, and Dorothy M. Richardson. 'Pointed Roofs' was the first of a series called Pilgrimage, a gigantic 13- volume semi-autobiographical narrative. Her novels can also be treated as a slice of history. She always portrayed the struggles and the joys of a lonely female worker in London. H.G Wells was her friend, and it is presumed that they had an affair. Today we can witness a blue plaque at Woburn Walk in Bloomsbury, where she lived, opposite Yeats, in 1905 and 1906. She has mentioned that across the alley from her flat, she could see W. B. Yeats writing by the light of "two immensely tall, thick white candles." She died on June 17, 1957, alone, greatly forgotten and in poverty.
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