In October 1927, Sylvia Townsend Warner was given a new notebook. At the end of the month, she began to write the diary which she was to keep until her death in 1978. Written for her own eye, rich in description and observation, her diary contains the details of her life, from the antics of her cats and plans for her garden, to her thoughts on friendship, writing and death. From the anecdotal early years to her love for her lifelong companion Valentine Ackland, through World War II and her traumatic near breakdown in 1949, to the final strange "double life" of her bereavement, the diary paints a striking picture of the writer's life, of the workings of her mind and the making of her art.