Virginia Woolf’s diary, 1922

To continue—certainly the later chapters are bare and grey, ground out too palpably; authorities, I daresay, interfering with the original flow. And Morton is a…

I’ve just had my dose of phenacetin—that is to say a mildly unfavourable review of Monday or Tuesday reported by Leonard from the Dial, the more depressing as I had…

Once more my mind is distracted from the thought of death. There was something about fame I had it in mind to say yesterday. Oh, I think it was that I have made up…

Jacob, as I say, is being typed by Miss Green, and crosses the Atlantic on July 14th. Then will begin my season of doubts and ups and downs. I am guarding myself in…

On Sunday L. read through Jacob’s Room. He thinks it my best work. But his first remark was that it was amazingly well written. We argued about it. He calls it a…

I should be reading Ulysses, and fabricating my case for and against. I have read 200 pages so far—not a third; and have been amused, stimulated, charmed,…

The way to rock oneself back into writing is this. First gentle exercise in the air. Second the reading of good literature. It is a mistake to think that literature…

I am beginning Greek again, and must really make out some plan: today 28th: Mrs. Dalloway finished on Saturday 2nd Sept.: Sunday 3rd to Friday 8th; start Chaucer.…

Having written this, L. put into my hands a very intelligent review of Ulysses, in the American Nation; which, for the first time, analyses the meaning; and…

I am a little uppish, though, and self assertive, because Brace wrote to me yesterday, “We think Jacob’s Room an extraordinarily distinguished and beautiful work.…

I have had two letters, from Lytton and Carrington, about Jacob’s Room, and written I don’t know how many envelopes; and here we are on the verge of publication. I…

As this is to be a chart of my progress I enter hastily here: one, a letter from Desmond who is halfway through, says “You have never written so well . . . I marvel…

Miss Mary Butts being gone, and my head too stupid for reading, I may as well write here, for my amusement later perhaps. I mean I’m too riddled with talk and…