Virginia Woolf's Diary

Virginia Woolf returned to her journal after a two-year hiatus on 3rd August, 1917. In the gap, she had suffered a major mental breakdown, attempted suicide, and been under intense medical supervision. Her rural retreat at Asheham in Sussex became both her sanctuary and a kind of nature-fueled therapy zone where she convalesced under a strict routine of “bed, walk, bed.”

Woolf's diary captures everything—creative breakthroughs, emotional collapses, what she had for lunch, and who annoyed her that week - from mundane observations to reflections on depression and mortality. She compared her journaling to practicing musical scales, a creative warm-up: one day she’s raving about Eliot and fretting about Joyce, and the next she’s lamenting a lack of eggs. Through it all, we see a mind battling itself: sharp, self-aware, and constantly asking, what’s the point of all this?

In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly dig out some warts-and-all passages for scrutiny; explain how archivists literally had to stick certain bits back together again; and ask how Woolf would fare as a twenty-first century micro-blogger…

Content Warning: suicide, clinical depression, eugenics.

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