The Diary of Virginia Woolf: Volume 4 | Granta

  • Published: 01/06/2023
  • ISBN: 9781783788750
  • Granta Books
  • 544 pages

The Diary of Virginia Woolf: Volume 4

Virginia Woolf

With an introduction by Margo Jefferson

Thursday 28 May 1931. On Whit Monday the sun blazed, making the grass semi-transparent. And space & leisure seemed to lie all about; & I said, not once in an exstasy, but frequently & soberly, This is happiness. Why should I feel now calmer, quieter than ever before?

This volume of Virginia Woolf’s diary has a slower pace: she is finishing The Waves and wrestling with the shape of her next novel (The Years). These years are marred by the death of many of the people in her circle, including her close friend Lytton Strachey. Woolf also reflects on the political situation in Britain, and the menacing rise of fascism abroad. The diary testifies to the sense of external threat, as well as the tension between her social and her writing life, but as she and Leonard embark on a series of foreign trips she also revels in the discovery of new places and the profound contentment of her marriage.

The Author

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is recognised as one of the most innovative writers of the 20th century. She was part of the Bloomsbury circle of artists, writers and thinkers, and a leading figure in the modernist movement. Perhaps best known for her fiction, including Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, she also wrote essays, biographies and reviews and maintained a private diary for much of her adult life. She was married to Leonard Woolf and lived between London and East Sussex.

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