Virginia Woolf’s diary, 1932

Oh but this is, as I always say, making an apology myself to myself, not the first day of the year. It is the thirteenth, and I am in one of those lassitudes and…

Having just finished, as I say, the final version as I call it, of my Letter to a Young Poet, I can take a moment’s liberty. From the cynical tone of this sentence…

Why did I ever say I would produce another volume of Common Reader? It will take me week after week, month after month. However a year spent—save for diversions in…

And I have just “finished”—I use inverted commas ironically—my Donne, a great but I think well intentioned grind. And I’m quivering and itching to write my—what’s…

What is the right attitude towards criticism? What ought I to feel and say when Miss B. devotes an article in Scrutiny to attacking me? She is young, Cambridge,…

Now I have “finished” David Copperfield, and I say to myself can’t I escape to some pleasanter atmosphere? Can’t I expand and embalm and become a sentient living…

And now today suddenly the weight on my head is lifted and I can think, reason, keep to one thing and concentrate. Perhaps this is the beginning of another spurt.…

Just “finished de Quincey.” Thus am I trying to keep pace with the days and deliver the second C.R. done on the last of June, which I see with dismay is Thursday. I…

Whenever I suck my pen, my lip is covered with ink. And I have no ink with which to fill my pot; and it is 10 minutes past 12; and I have just finished Hardy; and I…

I will take a new pen and a new page to record the fact which is now a fact that I have slipped a green rubber band round The Common Reader, second series, and…

Now I think I have corrected the C.R. till I can correct no longer. And I have a few minutes’ holiday before I need take the proofs in to L. Shall I then describe…

A curious day in London yesterday. I said to myself standing at L.’s window, Look at the present moment because it’s not been so hot for 21 years. There was a hot…

Yes, I will allow myself a new nib. Odd how coming back here upsets my writing mood. Odder still how possessed I am with the feeling that now, aged 50, I’m just…

He is a rattle headed, bolt eyed young man, raw boned, loose jointed, who thinks himself the greatest poet of all time. I daresay he is—it’s not a subject that…

Yes, today I have written myself to the verge of total extinction. Praised be I can stop and wallow in coolness and downs and let the wheels of my mind— how I beg…

This is not the first day of the New Year: but the discrepancy may be forgiven.* I must write off my dejected rambling misery—having just read over the 30,000 words…