Orlando is the extraordinary tale of a young man who finds wealth and favour in the court of Elizabeth I of England, but who never grows old. After experiencing love and adventure, a long sleep turns him into a woman, who in her turn faces discrimination and eventually love as the centuries unfold. This ground-breaking novel can be read in may ways: as an extended love-letter to Vita Sackville-West, as a meditation on the different treatment that men and women have experienced over the centuries and as an examination of the way literature itself has changed; "Orlando" becomes the typical hero or heroine of every age.