Covering the years 1897-1909, these journals complete the autobiographical sequence of Virginia Woolf's diary and letters and provide a picture of the circumstances in which she taught herself her craft. Many of the incidents of these years were to profoundly influence the rest of her life and were to become recurring themes in her novels: the death of her father, trips to Spain, Italy and Greece, and first encounters with those who were to form the Bloomsbury group.