Diary entry for January 1, 1898
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
Diary entry
January 1, 1898
This is one of Woolf’s earliest extant diaries. She began keeping diaries shortly after the death of her mother, Julia Stephen, in 1895. “Here is a volume of fairly acute life (the first really lived year of my life) ended locked & put away. And another & another & another yet to come,” she concludes the first volume. The small, leather-bound book with locking clasp features dates diligently recorded in advance, if not always accompanied by entries. Woolf followed this volume with several that she made by hand. In contrast to the brief entries of the first volume documenting daily life, Woolf’s entries in these volumes are longer, often undated, and increasingly in essay form: “A Chapter on Sunsets,” “Thoughts upon Social Success,” “The Wilton Carpet Factory.”
: Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
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