The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume Three: 1925-1930

The Diary of Virginia Woolf #3

by Virginia Woolf, Anne Olivier Bell (Editor), Andrew McNeillie (Assistant Editor)

An account of Woolf's life during the period in which To the Lighthouse and The Waves were written. "Her steel-trap mind and elegant prose...make this a most valuable and pleasurable book" (Publishers Weekly). "Volume three is as witty and intelligent as its predecessors" (Atlantic Monthly). Edited by Anne Olivier Bell, assisted by Andrew McNeillie; Index.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Diary, Memoir, Classics, Autobiography, 20th Century

408 pages, Paperback

First published March 27, 1980

About the author

(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Reviews

[Carlo Mascellani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ho sempre avuto grossi problemi con i diari. Con il tempo ho compreso che questo mio atteggiamento nasceva, sostanzialmente, da un approccio errato. Leggevo frenetico i diari degli autori amati sperando di trovarvi filosofie di vita, le lotte intraprese con l'ispirazione, la pagina bianca, la composizione delle loro opere migliori, gli istanti bui, il lento e tortuoso percorso compiuto per scoprirsi come persone e artisti. Quasi sempre rimanevo deluso e non facevo che leggere pagine su pagine di fatti quotidiani spesso insignificanti, vaniloqui, inezie. Ma un diario non è una biografia romanzata, bensì l'opportunità di cogliere la grandezza dell'artista in persone che, a quanto si coglie dalle quotidiane vicende narrate, spesso altro non sono se non individui semplici, con una vita semplice, fatta di cose ed eventi piccoli e semplici. Questo ho compreso leggendo il diario della Woolf e il travaglio interiore che ha condotto alla composizione di pietre miliari quali Gita al faro, Le onde, Una stanza tutta per sé, Orlando. Accostatevi a questi scritti con il giusto stato d'animo e la giusta prospettiva e saprete apprezzarli anche voi come meritano.

[Smiley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having this 5-volume set of The Diary of Virginia Woolf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgini...) is seemingly like an unthinkable odyssey to me. I first came across the set on display majestically one morning inside the Asia Books bookstore on Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok around late 1960's during my undergraduate years, I had vaguely known Mrs Woolf as a famous writer but never read her so I picked up Volume 1 to browse a few pages and thought I definitely wouldn't read any volume at all. However, on November 1, 2002 I found it again in a secondhand unnamed bookshop on Adelaide Road in Woolloomgabba in Brisbane on my way to an official appointment; so I couldn't help buying it due to its reasonable price and friendly welcome from a kind, helpful male shopkeeper.

For some reason, I have gradually read some of her shorter works and gained interest in knowing her more since a decade or two ago. That's why I started off and on reading her diary; it took time (2 years for this volume) to keep going amidst few enjoyments and most lengthiness of her vast narratives in terms of her daily entry in which some or many, I think, have professionally been edited by Mrs Anne Olivier Bell.

Before telling you on some interesting points we would gain by means of her texts, ideas, anecdotes, etc., I would like to say something on the nature of a few lines of a daily entry as extracted below:

Tuesday 1 April

And we have got to go & dined with Raymond now, this very potent, astonishingly exciting warm evening. . . . And I dropped in at the dressmaker. She has no teeth. She was stitching. She said like a friend Mrs Woolf we are going to move. And I thought you wdnt mind if I left out the stitching as my eyes ached. All that is said tonight is gentle & happy & seems to thrust into some soft tide. I cant get it right, naturally. (p. 298)

First of all, the time-saving symbol '&' has generously and ubiquitously been used (first line & thousands of them which we can find in every page) instead of writing 'and'. From line 3 onward, her highly-personal style is that she writes like talking to her reader [. . . she writes for, and talks to, each reader directly . . . (back cover)] 'wdnt', 'cant' deftly stand for 'would not', 'can't'. The sentences in lines 5-7 [. . . Mrs Woolf we are going to move. . . as my eyes ached.] are what the unnamed dressmaker said to Mrs Woolf while the last two sentences denote her own casual intimate opinion. I sometime wondered if many entries in her diary narratives could be categorized as a kind of her pioneering stream of consciousness.

Something I like from her diary, a few of them:

1. Her information on the area where she lived is seemingly familiar in any country in the 21st century VS the then 20th century.
Wednesday 20 August
. . .
I am writing while my potatoes boil. It has been a hot heavy ugly crusty [?] day; still, sulphurous; & the dogs have barked all round the village, one starting another. . . . (p. 312)

Barking dogs have understandably long been known as a merciless sort of notorious annoyance at night (or even in the daytime) due to their lack of discipline or dog training school attendance, let alone their owners' wisdom and consideration to their neighbourhood.

2. Her adoption of some famous literary phrases,
Wednesday 22 October
. . .
Winter has set in; draw the curtains; light the fire; & so to work. (p. 325)

The three-word phrase is obviously an applied one after so to bed by the famous diarist Samuel Pepys. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_...)


3. Her mention on a literary celeb/one of my favorites,
[? Wednesday 5 November,]
. . .
A slight inaccuracy, if applied to the past few days. Ethel Lyn & Hugh Walpole to tea on Monday; . . . ; Hugh again later, & his piteous, writhing & wincing & ridiculous & flaying alive story of Willie Maugham's portrait.[1]
. . .
[1.] The character of Alroy Kear in W. Somerset Maugham's novel Cakes and Ale was closely based upon that of his old friend Hugh Walpole. (p. 328)

I immensely enjoyed reading this novel by Mr Maugham without knowing anything on the friendship between himself and Sir Hugh Walpole (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Wa... therefore, I would reread the novel to know more on Alroy Kear's character as described in Sir Hugh's biography.
. . .

[Nicole Scavino · Rating 5 out of 5]

The way Virginia explains and writes is absolutely magneficent!!

[Regina]

Quattro stelle per una lettura interessante, anche curiosa, alla ricerca di uno stile, di una vita, di una donna d'eccezione.
Virginia si rivela. Per quanto è possibile rivelarsi. Ha degli obiettivi specifici su questa scrittura : fare 'esercizio' con le parole. La sua anima, almeno inizialmente vorrebbe lasciarla fuori. Ma non è possibile. Si intravede, poi si mostra con tutte, o molte, delle sue caratteristiche. Sono gli anni della pubblicazione della Signora Dalloway e di Gita al faro. Io incantata già qui dalla sua scrittura la cerco.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems odd to give stars to a diary, but if any diary is deserving of five stars, it's Woolf's. This volume, which covers her happiest and most productive years, is a particular joy. She writes with beauty and wit, even when she's just writing for herself. Her fears, her amusements, her obliquely referenced love affair with Vita Sackville-West, her preoccupations with the success of her greatest novels (all produced within this time span, more or less) are still intriguing to us nine decades later. Recommended for devoted Woolf enthusiasts; may not be as gripping to other, less obsessive readers. But if you are a British literature enthusiast, she hobnobs with all of the big names here (Eliot, aka "poor Tom," Yeats, Hardy, Forster, Keynes, Strachey, and of course, her beloved Vita, among others). I am always delighted to spend time with Woolf; she never disappoints me.

(Second read; first read circa 2010 in preparation for my undergrad thesis.)

[Manavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Volume Three:1925-1930 is the one I was most excited to read since I started reading The Diary of Virginia Woolf. I had very high hopes from this one. Why? Because those were the years when Woolf wrote To The Lighthouse and, my favorite, A Room of One's Own.

I was very eager to read what was going on inside her brilliant brain when she worked on those masterpieces. And how she evolved as a writer. I got that. This book met all of my expectations. But I also got so much more.

Such intriguing conversations, a glimpse of the life of the great Thomas Hardy, a prose on an eclipse almost as beautiful as the eclipse itself, a lost town, the list goes on and on. With so many ordinary stories written so extraordinarily, this volume is full of surprises.

[Azahara R. Pérez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Virginia Woolf disfrutando de la vida y alejándose del estereotipo único de escritora maldita. Es fantástico leer sus diarios en la que podría decirse que fue su etapa más feliz.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

These years include the success of To the lighthouse and Orlando, with a sudden jump in income which made further improvements to the house in Sussex possible as well as a sense of security. Virginia Woolf continued to be quite fragile in some ways (mental health, headaches, easily upset by people - why did her friends tease her about her hat or her clothes when it clearly wasn't a good moment for it?) yet she remained very disciplined about her writing and work for the press. There are a few wistful comments about her childlessness, which surprised me a bit as that had clearly been her choice at the time, but later on perhaps she regretted not having older children. She seems to have enjoyed her role as aunt, anyway.

[Kristi Hovington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Virginia was 43-48 years old when she wrote this, and as this is in my age bracket, I was in a consistent state of awe of what her brain could compose vs mine at the same age. Even when writing about events that maybe aren't that interesting in and of themselves - home construction, or budgeting, for example - I was flabbergasted at the depth of her perceptions.

The five years covered in this volume of diaries comprise perhaps the happiest (according to Virginia) of her life: professional success was attained (she published and/or wrote Orlando, A Room of One's Own, To the Lighthouse, Common Reader, and The Waves during these years); significant loves and friends were discovered (Vita and Ethyl); and she became financially independent as a writer and speaker.

Although the abridged version of her diaries excellently portray these 5 years of her life, the depths of reading the unabridged version was far more satisfying, to me. With that said, I enjoy reading her letters more than her diaries; she interestingly reveals more of herself and of her emotions when writing to others, but her diaries contain so many beautiful musings on ageing, the nature of love, friendship, and astute observations of the people in her life, who are all fascinating (Werner, Wells, Mansfield, Elliot, Forster, Sackville-West, Stein, Hardy, Strachey, Carrington...her social calendar is a who's who of 20th century London).

She also writes quite a bit about reading, itself, and its necessity in her life. The only times she mentions suicide, in this volume, is when she is feeling so out of sorts that she can't concentrate on reading; she wonders who she is if she cannot read, and cannot engage her intellect with others on the printed page. I loved these passages, as well as her musings on the transitory nature of relationships, of how one perceives oneself versus how one is perceived.

Anytime I read her, I just feel such a sense of wonder that someone of her intellect existed, and such a deep gratitude that she left so much of herself behind for others to discover.

Also of note: the editor, Anne Olivier Bell, one of the Monuments Men and an interesting person herself, did a fantastic job compiling VW's diaries, adding footnotes for more detail on specific events, referencing Virginia or Leonard's letters for clarification on the diary entries, and much more.

[Amy Christine Lesher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read the first two volumes of Woolf's diaries and they were filled with Virginia going on walks, having tea and dinner with friends, and worrying about how her books were being received. In the third volume written when Virginia was in her mid 40s she starts to become more her own person. There are still dinners with friends, but the worry about how Lytton will react to her newest book is gone. Instead, in the third volume we witness Virginia planning and discussing her work. She is thrilled at the how her writing continues to succeed beyond her dreams, and she doesn't worry about what her Bloomsbury friends think of her writing. I really enjoyed reading this volume and can't wait to read volume 4.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is with this volume that I begin to venture onto new ground in my V.W. reading. In the six years covered in this volume, she becomes very successful, publishing several of her more original works, and she and Leonard become more prosperous, buy a car, travel to Europe, and become sought after by the social set.

I like Virginia.

[2019: After reading a novel about Vanessa as a young woman and wife, I like Virginia less.)

[Dr. Sabrina Molden · Rating 3 out of 5]

This diary was interesting yet disappointing. This was during the highest point of her career but she talked more about her depressive feelings than in the other diaries. Plus, she struggled more with the act of writing. What I disliked was her seeming dishonesty. She dryly stuck more to her activities, likely trying to withhold information about the dynamics of her strange love affair with Vita. We shall see what Diary Four holds.

[Cary Boswell · Rating 3 out of 5]

She is a gifted writer, very introverted and good at characterizing people. She writes of everyday matters, as well as the people in her circle - writers, poets, publishers, politicians, family. Also about her conflicts with her servant Nelly and how she would like to have no servants.
Some parts interesting, some boring.

[Andrea Uribe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quizás, el más emotivo de los tres volúmenes hasta aquí leídos, pues en los años que este envuelve la autora publica sus obras clásicas ("La señora Dalloway", "Un cuarto propio", "Orlando" y "Las olas"). Además, en este lapso logra la tan preciada estabilidad económica y el reconocimiento como escritora y editora, que anhelaba recibir. Vita llega a su vida. Son los años, me parece, de plenitud.

[Elisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun to watch her hit her stride with Dalloway and Lighthouse. Number of flower references go down, possibly in response to her arguments wi L abt $ spent on garden, certainly by excitement of living in London.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

- volumes 2-3 of one of the great diaries in the language covers, arguably, Ms. Woolf’s greatest creative period, in which her pioneering “method” bore fruit in Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Orlando, to say nothing of the first Common Reader of literary essays -

[Silvia Zuleta Romano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sigue la estela de los dos primeros. Frases brillantes y un modo de ver la vida exigente y particular. Virginia disfrutaba de la vida, de sus relaciones, de la literatura. Hay algunas erratas pero no es grave. Me gustan estas ediciones. Para mí, la mejor VW está en sus diarios.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Diary of Virginia Woolf Vol. 3: 1925-1930 (Hardcover)
by Andrew McNeillie (Editor)

[Doris Raines · Rating 3 out of 5]

NICE BOOK.

[Jill Rebryna]

Yay!

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Striving to achieve balance between her needs and what others expected. Detailed accounts of her need to work alone and also her need for long recovery time from illnesses.

[Carolyn Bradley]

This "read" date is approximate.

[Stefania Bruletti · Rating 2 out of 5]

L'ho trovato un po' pesante, cambi di argomento difficili da seguire

[Brok3n · Rating 4 out of 5]

The longest suicide note ever written

This will be a review of the entire unabridged Diary -- five volumes. My review title is stolen from some more insightful reader of Virginia Woolf's Diary -- I don't remember where I saw it, unfortunately, so can't give proper credit.

There are several interesting stories told in here. For instance, it is the story of her Bloomsbury group of friends and artists. Aside from Woolf herself, most of these were rather dull people, with one major exception: economist John Maynard Keynes, truly a brilliant man, possessor of what The Indigo Girls call "a mind without end". (They are referring to Woolf herself with the phrase, but I am repurposing it.)

And then there is the story of the Hogarth Press. Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard (also an author) purchased a printing press and became a small publishing business, to my mind one of the most inspiring business success stories of all time.

But the central story of the Diary is the story of Woolf's psychological downward spiral. I would guess she suffered from what we now call Major Depression -- at the time it was probably called Melancholia. She began each new book with enthusiasm, happy to be starting something new. But then, as she passed the middle, the book would become a crushing burden, that she struggled to finish. And after the publication, regular as clockwork, the crash. You would think that publication and success would be a triumph, but that is not how depression works. Even winning feels like losing.

It is terrifying to read, because as you get along in the Diary it becomes clear that each crash is worse than the one before. And you know that, inevitably, she will one day finish a book, then walk into the river.

Blog review.

[Rahima Barakat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A writer's work of art tells you about her intellect and soul; her diary tells you about the raw inspiration of that work revealing every little detail in making it. This third volume witnesses the process of writing Woolf's grandest works, including To the Lighthouse, Orlando, A Room of One's own and The Waves. We get a glimpse of what it is like to produce a work of art, all between the desire of society's admiration and the terrible need of solitude .Furthermore, Woolf's skill to integrate the reader in the interesting details of her daily life, as a woman, writer , thinker , artist, and member of society is exquisite. Rather than reading, you get the impression that Woolf is chatting with the reader and involving them into conversations that lack neither the depth of thought, nor the beauty of art, nor the sarcasm and cynicism which she usually uses in describing her society. Needless to admit, then, that Virginia Woolf is a peculiar writer and genuine diarist.

[Duncan M Simpson · Rating 3 out of 5]

What can I say? As much fun as all the others. Her friends and family are old friends and members of my own family. The events of her life, its routine and challenges, servants and books, I savour.

Favourite entries, inspiration for a writer from someone who wrote prose of unfaltering beauty: "I write two sentences of arrant nonsense, after straining; write variations of every sentence; compromises; bad shots; possibilities; till my writing book is like a lunatic's dream..." (26 December 1929) and that from a writer who wrote with a steel nibbed pen, long before word processing.

And this: "I am more and more attracted by looseness, freedom & eating one's dinner off a table anywhere..." 2 September 1930.

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Virginia Woolf's spasmodic journals cover a period when she wrote To the Lighthouse, The Common Reader, On Being Ill, Orlando, A Room of One's Own, The Waves, and articles for the Times Literary Supplement. She comes across as someone who was highly critical of others. The journals don't cover the craft of her writing as much as I would have liked, but I found them worth reading, nevertheless, for some background about her personal life at the time the quality of her writing was at its peak.

[Loreto · Rating 5 out of 5]

No voy a ponerle nota porque es su diario y bastante con que lo leamos. Tampoco lo he leído entero ya que lo he cogido para el proyecto de adoptar a una autora y a mí lo de leer diarios reales siempre me da mucho respeto.

Woolf es una mujer apasionante y magnífica que me interesa muchísimo. Me leería hasta su lista de la compra. Me gusta su visión del mundo y de las personas. Cada obra suya que leo hace que ella me interese más.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lovely insight into the mind & workings of Virginia Woolf. I only wish that she had felt it important to discuss her struggles with mental illness a bit more so that I could have followed where her mind was going. I would describe her diaries as intellectual, representing her ideals about writing & society although glossing over the emotional, personal views of her life.

[Pumpernickel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I take all the time in the world to read Virgina Woolf's diaries... And it takes me a long, long time to read each volume cause I stop to read her letters of the period, the letters of her sister -- and great painter -- Vanessa Bell, their friend Lytton Strachey's letters AND diary, etc., etc., etc...