Diary entry for October 22, 1927
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
Diary entry
October 22, 1927
As with To the Lighthouse, Woolf quickly drafted her next book, Orlando (1928). “Once the mind gets hot it can’t stop,” she mused in this diary entry while working on the epoch-spanning novel, whose seemingly immortal eponymous character undergoes a spontaneous gender transition midway through the book.
Woolf wrote Orlando “half in mock style very clear & plain.” She based the central characters upon her lover of nearly two years, Vita Sackville-West (Orlando); one of Sackville-West’s former lovers, Violet Trefusis (the Russian princess Sasha); and one of Sackville-West’s former suitors, Henry, Lord Lascelles (Archduchess Harriet/Archduke Harry).
: Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
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