Customer Reviews

A Moment's Liberty: The Shorter Diary

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Virginia Woolf's diaries contain much of her most accessible and interesting writing, but the average reader is not likely to wade through all five volumes of the complete diary. This book, edited by the editor of the full diary, Anne Olivier Bell, presents most of the best of Woolf's reflections on her daily life and times, the people she knew, the struggles and joys of her days. Each year is prefaced with a helpful biographical sketch, and the index of names gives not only page references, but a quick description of the person's connection to Woolf.

It's important to know, however, that the book was meant as a sort of companion to the previous selection from Woolf's diaries created by her husband, Leonard, and published as A Writer's Diary. This earlier book printed the diary entries concerning Woolf's writings, and it is a marvelous selection. However, it was published at a time when many of the people Woolf mentioned were still alive, and so it wasn't until the full diary was published that readers got to see how dangerously witty and sharp Woolf could be about her colleagues and compatriots. A Moment's Liberty benefits from being able to draw from the full diary without need of censorship.