Notes to the Diaries by Professor Marlene Baldwin Davis:

In July of 1925 James and Stella go to Lung Ching Tsun, Kirin Province, Manchuria (or the Northeast, as it also known). This remote post, across from Vladivostok, is where Stella was inspired to write her most important novel, Tobit Transplanted (1931) (or The Faraway Bride, its American title). Deeply sympathetic to the plight of émigrés, Stella drew on this world of displaced Russians to create a witty yet compassionate story of their survival.

During these years Stella also spent time with old friends and met new ones in California, particularly a lively young poet, Marie Welch, a friend of Albert Bender. Through her friendship with Marie, Stella met Harriet and Ellis Roberts in England. Roberts, an editor for The Nation, eventually wrote the first biography of Stella Benson.

During Stella's visit to California James asked her if he could take a mistress - something many Western men in China did, without asking permission - and she reluctantly agreed. In 1927 both Stella and James are in Europe, particularly London and Ireland for James's home leave. Besides visiting their families, they saw a good deal of the Spring Rices and Naomi and Dick Mitcheson and their family and became involved in the two couples' marital problems. Mitcheson, a prolific writer herself, admired Stella and her work. Winifred Holtby, another close friend, fellow novelist and first biographer of Virginia Woolf, travelled to Ireland with James and Stella and saw them frequently. They were not fond of Winifred's good friend Vera Brittain, who gained popularity with her autobiographical book, Testament of Youth. Stella began a friendship with Virginia and Leonard Woolf and was invited to their home (11 Dec '28). James did not fit in with many of the literary crowd, except for Holtby. Together James and Stella made friends with painter Lady Eileen, a daughter of the 4th Duke of Wellington, and her husband artist Cuthbert Orde. They spent considerable time together, among other things playing poker. Cuthbert also painted Stella. Eileen Power introduced them to her friends as well (many entries). Through literary events Stella met novelists Elizabeth Bowen and Violet Hunt, poet Humbert Wolfe, and many other writers and critics. She also met a dashing man and became infatuated with him. Her diary entries go into detail about her interest and her short-sightedness.

James and Stella have considerable doubts about their own marriage - each blaming the other and then themselves. The late 1928 and early 1929 entries examine these concerns in depth.