October 1931 saw two landmark Hogarth Press publications: Leonard Woolf 's After the Deluge: A Study of Communal Psychology and Virginia Woolf 's The Waves. Woolf 's novel sold out almost immediately, despite an initial run of over 7000, with a second impression of 5000 the same month, whereas the sales and reception of Leonard's Study of Communal Psychology seem to have disappointed. Virginia records in her diary how she has

To make matters worse, the following day, the Guardian lauded The Waves in an extended review entitled “The Rhythm of Life”:

Yet, as Victoria Glendinning notes, After the Deluge received many positive notices, notably Harold Laski's in the New Statesman & Nation, L. B. Namier's in the Observer, and a review in the Melbourne Age which “praised the book as ‘an outstanding contribution to social psychology, […] as exciting to read as a novel’” (qtd in Glendinning 262). Indeed, Virginia refers to plaudits from “Laski & the experts” in her diary, for Harold Laski, a Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics, had praised it as “a masterpiece” (D4 50). A fortnight earlier, Virginia noted how she was “trembling with pleasure […] because Harold Nicolson ha[d] rung up to say The Waves is a masterpiece” (D4 47), echoing Leonard's judgment when he read the novel in July. However, she was soon reflecting that the reviews “don't stir me very much” (ibid.), for “[w]e makers of masterpieces remain very calm, very well content” (D4 50).