The years covered by the second volume of the diaries were a decisive period in the development of Virginia Woolf as a writer. In Jacob's Room, she delved even further into her new approach to writing prose, which ultimately allowed her to create one of literature's masterpieces, Mrs. Dalloway. At the same time, Virginia was writing a series of critical essays for the collection “The Ordinary Reader.” In addition, in 1920–1924. she has published more than a hundred articles and reviews. Virginia talks about the effort that writing requires of her (“it requires the tension of every nerve”); reflects on sensitivity to criticism (“I better stop paying attention... it creates discomfort”); admits to a strong sense of competition with Katherine Mansfield (“the more they praise her, the more convinced I am that she is bad”). After tea parties, Virginia writes down the words of the guests: T.S. Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Lytton Strachey - and describes his impressions of his new friend Vita Sackville-West. For the first time in Russian.