In 1915 Virginia Woolf started to keep a regular diary, and continued to do so till a few days before her death in 1941. For the present volume, Leonard Woolf has extracted from the diaries almost every passage which refers to Virginia Woolf's own writing, together with other passages which indirectly throw light on her creative and critical methods and powers. Since Virginia Woolf constantly uses the diaries to discuss with herself the problems of her art, this book gives us a very remarkable insight into the mind and method of one who, in Professor Blackstone's phrase, 'did supremely well what no-one else has attempted to do.' A Writer's Diary is not merely of technical literary interest: it reveals to us the extraordinary patience and energy, the concentration and integrity which go to the making of works of art. It also contains brilliant descriptions and remarkable portraits of famous and obscure persons.