Storm-Tossed & Exposed

Abstract

In February 1937, Virginia Woolf's nephew, Julian Bell, says he will enlist to fight the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. In July 1937, war erupts between China and Japan. These outer storms, now reaching Woolf's own family circle, darken her own (deserved) high sail. America's Time magazine features Woolf on its cover, a sign of international literary fame. Due mostly to the success of The Years, Hogarth Press’ 1937 profits are unprecedented. Yet, so tossed and exposed is Woolf by the outer crises around her that she cannot savor her success. In February 1937, she reads The Final Struggle: Being Countess Tolstoy’s Diary for 1910 with Extracts from Leo Tolstoy’s Diary of the same period. She sees her own anguish in the final diaries of Leo Tolstoy and his wife. She finds there not only inner and outer wars (recorded in many diaries) but also a war fought over diaries as well.