“Book Descriptions:People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms any more than they should leave open cheque books or letters confessing some hideous crime...
Sitting in the drawing room of a house in the country, an un-named narrator describes scenes outside the house that can be seen reflected in a mirror in the hall.
The Lady in the Looking-Glass was first published in the American monthly Harper’s Magazine in December 1929. The story was inspired by a visit Woolf made to Ethel Sands in Normandy. She noted in her diary for 20 September 1927:
How many little stories come into my head! For instance, Ethel Sands not looking at her letters. What this implies. One might write a book of short significant separate scenes. She did not open her letters.