Complete Works of Virginia Woolf

  We were in London on Monday. I went to London Bridge. I looked at the river; very misty; some tufts of smoke, perhaps from burning houses. There was another fire on Saturday. Then I saw a cliff of wall, eaten out, at one corner; a great corner all smashed; a Bank; the Monument erect: tried to get a bus; but such a block I dismounted; and the second bus advised me to walk. A complete jam of traffic; for streets were being blown up. So by Tube to the Temple; and there wandered in the desolate ruins of my old squares: gashed; dismantled; the old red bricks all white powder, something like a builder’s yard. Grey dirt and broken windows. Sightseers; all that completeness ravished and demolished.

  Sunday, January 26th.

  A battle against depression, rejection (by Harpers of my story and Ellen Terry) routed today (I hope) by clearing out kitchen; by sending the article (a lame one) to N.S.: and by breaking into P.H. two days, I think, of memoir writing. This trough of despair shall not, I swear, engulf me. The solitude is great.

  Rodmell life is very small beer. The house is damp. The house is untidy. But there is no alternative. Also days will lengthen. What I need is the old spurt. ‘Your true life, like mine, is in ideas’ Desmond said to me once. But one must remember one can’t pump ideas. I begin to dislike introspection: sleep and slackness; musing; reading; cooking; cycling: oh and a good hard rather rocky book - viz: Herbert Fisher. This is my prescription.

  There’s a lull in the war. Six nights without raids. But Garvin says the greatest struggle is about to come - say in three weeks - and every man, woman, dog, cat, even weevil must girt their arms, their faith - and so on. It’s the cold hour, this: before the lights go up. A few snowdrops in the garden. Yes, I was thinking: we live without a future. That’s what’s queer: with our noses pressed to a closed door. Now to write, with a new nib, to Enid Jones.

  Friday, February 7th.

  Why was I depressed? I cannot remember. We have been to Charlie Chaplin. Like the milk girl we found it boring. I have been writing with some glow. Mrs Thrale is to be done before we go to Cambridge. A week of broken water impends.

  Sunday, February 16th.

  In the wild grey water after last week’s turmoil. I liked the dinner with Dadie best. All very lit up and confidential. I liked the soft grey night at Newnham. We found Pernel in her high ceremonial room, all polished and spectatorial. She was in soft reds and blacks. We sat by a bright fire. Curious flitting talk. She leaves next year. Then Letchworth - the slaves chained to their typewriters, and their drawn set faces and the machines - the incessant more and more competent machines, folding, pressing, gluing and issuing perfect books. They can stamp cloth to imitate leather. Our Press is up in a glass case. No country to look at. Very long train journeys. Food skimpy. No butter, no jam. Old couples hoarding marmalade and grape nuts on their tables. Conversation half whispered round the lounge fire. Elizabeth Bowen arrived two hours after we got back, and went yesterday: and tomorrow Vita; then Enid; then perhaps I shall re-enter one of my higher lives. But not yet.

  Wednesday, February 26th.

  My ‘higher life’ is almost entirely the Elizabethan play. Finished Poyntz Hall, the Pageant; the play - finally Between the Acts this morning.

  Sunday, March 8th.

  Just back from L.’s speech at Brighton. Like a foreign town: the first spring day. Women sitting on seats. A pretty hat in a teashop - how fashion revives the eye! And the shell encrusted old women, rouged, decked, cadaverous at the teashop. The waitress in checked cotton. No: I intend no introspection. I mark Henry James’ sentence: observe perpetually. Observe the oncome of age. Observe greed. Observe my own despondency. By that means it becomes serviceable. Or so I hope. I insist upon spending this time to the best advantage. I will go down with my colours flying. This I see verges on introspection; but doesn’t quite fall in. Suppose I bought a ticket at the Museum; biked in daily and read history. Suppose I selected one dominant figure in every age and wrote round and about. Occupation is essential. And now with some pleasure I find that it’s seven; and must cook dinner. Haddock and sausage meat. I think it is true that one gains a certain hold on sausage and haddock by writing them down.

  I scarcely ever read it. But, owing to his giving me the books, I am now reading C. by M. Baring. I am surprised to find it as good as it is. But how good is it? Easy to say it is not a great book. But what qualities does it lack? That it adds nothing to one’s vision of life, perhaps. Yet it is hard to find a serious flaw. My wonder is that entirely second rate work like this, poured out in profusion by at least 20 people yearly, I suppose, has so much merit. Never reading it, I get into the way of thinking it non-existent. So it is, speaking with the utmost strictness. That is, it will not exist in 2026; but it has some existence now, which puzzles me a little. Now Clarissa bores me; yet I feel this is important. And why?

  My own brain Here is a whole nervous breakdown in miniature. We came on I daresay that gives me more substantial pleasure than any letter I’ve had about any book. Yes, I think it does, coming from Morgan. For one thing it gives me reason to think I shall be right to go on along this very lonely path. I mean in the City today I was thinking of another book - about shopkeepers, and publicans, with low life scenes: and I ratified this sketch by Morgan’s judgement. Dadie agrees too. Oh yes, between 50 and 60 I think I shall write out some very singular books, if I live. I mean I think I am about to embody at last the exact shapes my brain holds. What a long toil to reach this beginning - if The Waves is my first work in my own style! To be noted, as curiosities of my literary history: I sedulously avoid meeting Roger and Lytton whom I suspect do not like The Waves.

  I am working very hard - in my way, to furbish up two long Elizabethan articles to front a new Common Reader: then I must go through the whole long list of those articles. I feel too, at the back of my brain, that I can devise a new critical method; something far less stiff and formal than these Times articles.

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  Woolf took her own life in the River Ouse in East Sussex

  A plaque signalling where Woolf’s ashes were scattered outside Monk´s House, Lewes, East Sussex. The inscription reads, “Beneath this tree are buried the ashes of Virginia Woolf. Born January 25 1882, Died March 28 1941. Death is the enemy. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding o Death! The waves broke on the shore”.

  Table of Contents

  The Novels

  THE VOYAGE OUT

  NIGHT AND DAY

  JACOB’S ROOM

  MRS. DALLOWAY

  TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

  ORLANDO

  THE WAVES

  FLUSH

  THE YEARS

  BETWEEN THE ACTS

  The Short Stories

  LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

  LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

  The Play

  FRESHWATER

  The Non-Fiction

  THE COMMON READER: FIRST SERIES

  THE COMMON READER: SECOND SERIES

  A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN

  LONDON ESSAYS

  WALTER SICKERT: A CONVERSATION

  THREE GUINEAS

  THE DEATH OF THE MOTH AND OTHER ESSAYS

  THE MOMENT AND OTHER ESSAYS

  ROGER FRY: A BIOGRAPHY

  ON BEING ILL

  THE CAPTAIN’S DEATH BED AND OTHER ESSAYS

  GRANITE AND RAINBOW

  BOOKS AND PORTRAITS