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The Bloomsbury Group was a group of associated British writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the early 20th century. Among the people involved in the group were
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
,
John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist and philosopher whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originall ...
, E. M. Forster,
Vanessa Bell Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 30 May 1879 – 7 April 1961) was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf (née Stephen). Early life and education Vanessa Stephen was the eld ...
, and
Lytton Strachey Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of ''Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychology, psychologic ...
. Their works and outlook deeply influenced
literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...
,
aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...
,
criticism Criticism is the construction of a judgement about the negative or positive qualities of someone or something. Criticism can range from impromptu comments to a written detailed response. , ''the act of giving your opinion or judgment about the ...
, and
economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
, as well as modern attitudes towards
feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
,
pacifism Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ...
, and
sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...
. Although popularly thought of as a formal group, it was a loose collective of friends and relatives closely associated with the
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
for the men and
King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...
for the women, who at one point lived, worked or studied together near
Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...
, London. According to Ian Ousby, "although its members denied being a group in any formal sense, they were united by an abiding belief in the importance of the arts."Ousby, p. 95 The historian C. J. Coventry, resurrecting an older argument by
Raymond Williams Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contribu ...
, disputes the existence of the group and the extent of its impact, describing it as "curio" for those interested in Keynes and Woolf.Raymond Williams, “The Significance of ‘Bloomsbury’ as a Social and Cultural Group,” in Derek Crabtree & A. P. Thirlwall, Keynes and the Bloomsbury Group: The Fourth Keynes Seminar held at the University of Kent at Canterbury (Macmillan, 1980).


Origins

All male members of the Bloomsbury Group, except Duncan Grant, were educated at
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
(either at
Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, thr ...
or King's College). Most of them, except Clive Bell and the Stephen brothers, were members of "the exclusive
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
society, the ' Apostles'". At Trinity in 1899
Lytton Strachey Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of ''Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychology, psychologic ...
,
Leonard Woolf Leonard Sidney Woolf (; – ) was a British List of political theorists, political theorist, author, publisher, and civil servant. He was married to author Virginia Woolf. As a member of the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party and the Fabian Socie ...
, Saxon Sydney-Turner and Clive Bell became good friends with Thoby Stephen, and it was through Thoby and Adrian Stephen's sisters Vanessa and
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
that the men met the women of
Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...
when they came down to London.Blythe, p. 54Gadd, p. 20 In 1905 Vanessa began the "Friday Club" and Thoby ran "Thursday Evenings", which became the basis for the Bloomsbury Group,Tate, Bloomsbury timeline which to some was really "Cambridge in London". Thoby's premature death in 1906 brought them more firmly together and they became what is now known as the "Old Bloomsbury" group who met in earnest beginning in 1912. In the 1920s and 1930s the group shifted when the original members died and the next generation had reached adulthood. The Bloomsbury Group, mostly from upper middle-class professional families, formed part of "an intellectual aristocracy which could trace itself back to the
Clapham Sect The Clapham Sect, or Clapham Saints, were a group of social reformers associated with Holy Trinity Clapham in the period from the 1780s to the 1840s. Despite the label "sect", most members remained in the Established Church, established (and do ...
". It was an informal network of an influential group of artists, art critics, writers and an economist, many of whom lived in the West Central 1 district of London known as
Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...
.Avery, p. 33. They were "spiritually" similar to the Clapham group who supported its members' careers: "The Bloomsberries promoted one another's work and careers just as the original Claphamites did, as well as the intervening generations of their grandparents and parents."Kuper, p. 241. A historical feature of these friends and relations is that their close relationships all pre-dated their fame as writers, artists, and thinkers.


Membership


Members

The group had ten core members: * Clive Bell, art critic *
Vanessa Bell Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 30 May 1879 – 7 April 1961) was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf (née Stephen). Early life and education Vanessa Stephen was the eld ...
, post-impressionist painter * E. M. Forster, fiction writer *
Roger Fry Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and art critic, critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent ...
, art critic and post-impressionist painter * Duncan Grant, post-impressionist painter *
John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist and philosopher whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originall ...
, economist *
Desmond MacCarthy Sir Charles Otto Desmond MacCarthy (20 May 1877 – 7 June 1952) was a British writer and literary and dramatic critic. He was a member of the Cambridge Apostles, the intellectual secret society, from 1896. Early life and education The son ...
, literary journalist *
Lytton Strachey Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of ''Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychology, psychologic ...
, biographer *
Leonard Woolf Leonard Sidney Woolf (; – ) was a British List of political theorists, political theorist, author, publisher, and civil servant. He was married to author Virginia Woolf. As a member of the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party and the Fabian Socie ...
, essayist and non-fiction writer *
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...
, fiction writer and essayist In addition to these ten,
Leonard Woolf Leonard Sidney Woolf (; – ) was a British List of political theorists, political theorist, author, publisher, and civil servant. He was married to author Virginia Woolf. As a member of the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party and the Fabian Socie ...
, in the 1960s, listed as "Old Bloomsbury"
Adrian Adrian is a form of the Latin given name Adrianus or Hadrianus. Its ultimate origin is most likely via the former river Adria from the Venetic and Illyrian word ''adur'', meaning "sea" or "water". The Adria was until the 8th century BC the ma ...
and Karin Stephen, Saxon Sydney-Turner, and Molly MacCarthy, with Julian Bell, Quentin Bell and Angelica Bell, and David Garnett as "later additions".Lee, p. 263 Except for Forster, who published three novels before the highly successful ''Howards End'' in 1910, the group were late developers.Gadd, p. 103-7 There were stable marriages and varied and complicated affairs among the individual members. Lytton Strachey and his cousin and lover Duncan Grant became close friends of the Stephen sisters, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. Duncan Grant had affairs with siblings Vanessa Bell and Adrian Stephen, as well as David Garnett, Maynard Keynes, and James Strachey. Clive Bell married Vanessa in 1907, and Leonard Woolf returned from the Ceylon Civil Service to marry Virginia in 1912. Cambridge Apostle friendships brought into the group Desmond MacCarthy, his wife Molly, and E. M. Forster. The group met not only in their homes in Bloomsbury,
central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning the City of London and several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local gove ...
, but also at countryside retreats. There are two significant ones near
Lewes Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. The town is the administrative centre of the wider Lewes (district), district of the same name. It lies on the River Ouse, Sussex, River Ouse at the point where the river cuts through the Sou ...
in Sussex: Charleston Farmhouse, where Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved in 1916, and Monk's House (now owned by the
National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...
), in Rodmell, owned by Virginia and Leonard Woolf from 1919.


Others

Much about Bloomsbury appears to be controversial, including its membership and name: indeed, some would maintain that "the three words 'the Bloomsbury group' have been so much used as to have become almost unusable". Close friends, brothers, sisters, and even sometimes partners of the friends were not necessarily members of Bloomsbury: Keynes's wife Lydia Lopokova was only reluctantly accepted into the group,Clarke, p. 56 and there were certainly "writers who were at some time close friends of Virginia Woolf, but who were distinctly not 'Bloomsbury': T. S. Eliot,
Katherine Mansfield Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp; 14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a New Zealand writer and critic who was an important figure in the Literary modernism, modernist movement. Her works are celebrated across the world and have been ...
,
Hugh Walpole Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (13 March 18841 June 1941) was an English novelist. He was the son of an Anglican clergyman, intended for a career in the church but drawn instead to writing. Among ...
". Another is Vita Sackville-West, who became "
Hogarth Press The Hogarth Press is a book publishing Imprint (trade name), imprint of Penguin Random House that was founded as an independent company in 1917 by British authors Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in London Boro ...
's best-selling author". Members cited in "other lists might include Ottoline Morrell, or
Dora Carrington Dora de Houghton Carrington (29 March 1893 – 11 March 1932), known generally as Carrington, was an English painter and decorative artist, remembered in part for her association with members of the Bloomsbury Group, especially the writer Lytt ...
, or James and Alix Strachey".


Shared ideas

The lives and works of the group members show an overlapping, interconnected similarity of ideas and attitudes that helped to keep the friends and relatives together, reflecting in large part the influence of
G. E. Moore George Edward Moore (4 November 1873 – 24 October 1958) was an English philosopher, who with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and earlier Gottlob Frege was among the initiators of analytic philosophy. He and Russell began de-emphasizing ...
: "the essence of what Bloomsbury drew from Moore is contained in his statement that 'one's prime objects in life were love, the creation and enjoyment of aesthetic experience and the pursuit of knowledge'".


Philosophy and ethics

Through the Apostles they also encountered the analytic philosophers
G. E. Moore George Edward Moore (4 November 1873 – 24 October 1958) was an English philosopher, who with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and earlier Gottlob Frege was among the initiators of analytic philosophy. He and Russell began de-emphasizing ...
and
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
who were revolutionizing British philosophy at the start of the 20th century. Distinguishing between ends and means was a commonplace of ethics, but what made Moore's ''
Principia Ethica ''Principia Ethica'' is a book written in 1903 by British philosopher G. E. Moore. Moore questions a fundamental pillar of ethics, specifically what the definition of "good" is. He concludes that "good" is indefinable because any attempts to do ...
'' (1903) so important for the philosophical basis of Bloomsbury thought was Moore's conception of ''intrinsic worth'' as distinct from ''instrumental value''. As with the distinction between love (an intrinsic state) and monogamy (a behavior, i.e. instrumental), Moore's differentiation between intrinsic and instrumental value allowed the Bloomsburies to maintain an ethical high-ground based on intrinsic merit, independent of, and without reference to, the consequences of their actions. For Moore, intrinsic value depended on an indeterminable intuition of good and a concept of complex states of mind whose worth as a whole was not proportionate to the sum of its parts. For both Moore and Bloomsbury, the greatest ethic goods were "the importance of personal relationships and the private life", as well as aesthetic appreciation: "art for art's sake".


Rejection of bourgeois habits

Bloomsbury reacted against current upper class English social rituals, "the
bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...
habits ... the conventions of Victorian life" with their emphasis on public achievement, in favour of a more informal and private focus on personal relationships and individual pleasure. E. M. Forster for example approved of "the decay of smartness and fashion as factors, and the growth of the idea of enjoyment", and asserted that "if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country". The Group "believed in pleasure ... They tried to get the maximum of pleasure out of their personal relations. If this meant
triangles A triangle is a polygon with three corners and three sides, one of the basic shapes in geometry. The corners, also called ''vertices'', are zero-dimensional points while the sides connecting them, also called ''edges'', are one-dimensiona ...
or more complicated geometric figures, well then, one accepted that too". Yet at the same time, they shared a sophisticated, civilized, and highly articulated ideal of pleasure. As Virginia Woolf put it, their "triumph is in having worked out a view of life which was not by any means corrupt or sinister or merely intellectual; rather ascetic and austere indeed; which still holds, and keeps them dining together, and staying together, after 20 years".


Politics

Politically, Bloomsbury held mainly left-liberal stances (opposed to
militarism Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values. It may also imply the glorification of the mili ...
, for example); but its "clubs and meetings were not activist, like the political organisations to which many of Bloomsbury's members also belonged", and they would be criticised for that by their 1930s successors, who by contrast were "heavily touched by the politics which Bloomsbury had rejected". The campaign for
women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...
added to the controversial nature of Bloomsbury, as Virginia Woolf represented the group in the fictional ''The Years'' and ''Night and Day'' works about the suffrage movement.


Art

Roger Fry joined the group in 1910. His Post-Impressionist exhibitions of 1910 and 1912 involved Bloomsbury in a second revolution following on the Cambridge philosophical one. This time the Bloomsbury painters were much involved and influenced. Fry and other Bloomsbury artists rejected the traditional distinction between fine and decorative art. These "Bloomsbury assumptions" are reflected in members' criticisms of materialistic realism in painting and fiction, influenced above all by Clive Bell's "concept of 'Significant Form', which separated and elevated the concept of form above content in works of art": it has been suggested that, with their "focus on form ...Bell's ideas have come to stand in for, perhaps too much so, the aesthetic principles of the Bloomsbury Group". The establishment's hostility to post-impressionism made Bloomsbury controversial, and controversial they have remained. Clive Bell polemicized post-impressionism in his widely read book ''Art'' (1914), basing his aesthetics partly on Roger Fry's art criticism and G. E. Moore's moral philosophy; and as the war came he argued that "in these days of storm and darkness, it seemed right that at the shrine of civilization - in Bloomsbury, I mean - the lamp should be tended assiduously".Lee, p. 265


World War I

Old Bloomsbury's development was affected, along with much of
modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
culture, by the
First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
: "the small world of Bloomsbury was later said by some on its outskirts to have been irretrievably shattered", though in fact its friendships "survived the upheavals and dislocations of war, in many ways were even strengthened by them". Most but not all of them were conscientious objectors. Politically, the members of Bloomsbury had liberal and socialist leanings. Though the war dispersed Old Bloomsbury, the individuals continued to develop their careers. E. M. Forster followed his successful novels with '' Maurice'' which he could not publish because it treated homosexuality untragically. In 1915, Virginia Woolf brought out her first novel, '' The Voyage Out''; and in 1917 the Woolfs founded their
Hogarth Press The Hogarth Press is a book publishing Imprint (trade name), imprint of Penguin Random House that was founded as an independent company in 1917 by British authors Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in London Boro ...
, which would publish T. S. Eliot,
Katherine Mansfield Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp; 14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a New Zealand writer and critic who was an important figure in the Literary modernism, modernist movement. Her works are celebrated across the world and have been ...
, and many others including Virginia herself along with the standard English translations of Freud. Then in 1918 Lytton Strachey published his critique of Victorianism in the shape of four ironic biographies in ''
Eminent Victorians ''Eminent Victorians'' is a book by Lytton Strachey (one of the older members of the Bloomsbury Group), first published in 1918, and consisting of biography, biographies of four leading figures from the Victorian era. Its fame rests on the irreve ...
,'' which added to the arguments about Bloomsbury that continue to this day, and "brought him the triumph he had always longed for ... The book was a sensation". The following year came J. M. Keynes's influential attack on the Versailles Peace Treaty: '' The Economic Consequences of the Peace'' established Maynard as a Neo-Classical economist and political economist of international eminence.


Attire

Bloomsbury members became known for distinctive garments; Woolf in particular was opposed to conventions surrounding formal attire, such as "dressing for dinner".


Later Bloomsbury

The 1920s were in a number of ways the blooming of Bloomsbury. Virginia Woolf was writing and publishing her most widely read modernist novels and essays, and E. M. Forster completed '' A Passage to India'', a highly regarded novel on British imperialism in India. Forster wrote no more novels but he became one of England's most influential essayists. Duncan Grant, and then Vanessa Bell, had single-artist exhibitions. Lytton Strachey wrote his biographies of two queens, ''Queen Victoria'' (1921) and ''Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History'' (1928). Desmond MacCarthy and Leonard Woolf engaged in friendly rivalry as literary editors, respectively of the ''
New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...
'' and ''
The Nation and Athenaeum ''The Nation and Athenaeum'', or simply ''The Nation'', was a United Kingdom political weekly newspaper with a Liberal/ Labour viewpoint. It was formed in 1921 from the merger of the '' Athenaeum'', a literary magazine published in London since ...
'', thus fuelling animosities that saw Bloomsbury dominating the cultural scene. Roger Fry wrote and lectured widely on art; meanwhile, Clive Bell applied Bloomsbury values to his book ''Civilization'' (1928), which Leonard Woolf saw as limited and elitist, describing Bell as a "wonderful organiser of intellectual
greyhound racing Greyhound racing is an organized, competitive sport in which greyhounds are raced around an oval track. The sport originates from Hare coursing, coursing. Track racing uses an artificial lure (usually a form of windsock) that travels ahead of th ...
tracks". In the darkening 1930s, Bloomsbury began to die: "Bloomsbury itself was hardly any longer a focus". A year after publishing a collection of brief lives, ''Portraits in Miniature'' (1931), Lytton Strachey died;Rosenbaum, p. xi shortly afterwards Carrington shot herself. Roger Fry died in 1934. Vanessa and Clive's eldest son, Julian Bell, was killed in 1937 during the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...
. Virginia Woolf wrote Fry's biography, but with the coming of war again her mental instability recurred, and she drowned herself in 1941. In the previous decade she had become one of the century's most famous
feminist writers Feminist literature is fiction, nonfiction, drama, or poetry, which supports the feminist goals of defining, establishing, and defending equal civil, political, economic, and social rights for women. It often addresses the roles of women in soci ...
with three more novels, and a series of essays including the moving late memoir " A Sketch of the Past". It was also in the 1930s that Desmond MacCarthy became perhaps the most widely read—and heard—literary critic with his columns in ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...
'' and his broadcasts for the BBC. John Maynard Keynes's '' The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money'' (1936) made him one of the century's most influential economists. He died in 1946 after being much involved in monetary negotiations with the United States. The diversity yet collectivity of Later Bloomsbury's ideas and achievements can be summed up in a series of credos that were made in 1938, the year of the
Munich Agreement The Munich Agreement was reached in Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the French Third Republic, French Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy. The agreement provided for the Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–194 ...
. Virginia Woolf published her radical feminist polemic '' Three Guineas'' that shocked some of her fellow members, including Keynes who had enjoyed the gentler '' A Room of One's Own'' (1929). Keynes read his ''My Early Beliefs'' to The Memoir Club. Clive Bell published an
appeasement Appeasement, in an International relations, international context, is a diplomacy, diplomatic negotiation policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power (international relations), power with intention t ...
pamphlet (he later supported the war), and E. M. Forster wrote an early version of his famous essay " What I Believe" with its choice of personal relations over patriotism: his quiet assertion in the face of the increasingly
totalitarian Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public sph ...
claims of both left and right that "personal relations ... love and loyalty to an individual can run counter to the claims of the State".


Memoir Club

In March 1920 Molly MacCarthy began the Memoir Club to help Desmond and herself write their memoirs; and also "for their friends to regroup after the war (with the proviso that they should always tell the truth)". It met until 1956 or 1964. The club was made up of members of the Bloomsbury Group, a loose collective of artists, writers, intellectuals, and philosophers. Some of the core members of the Bloomsbury Group included Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Clive Bell, John Maynard Keynes, Roger Fry, E.M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, Sir Desmond MacCarthy, and Duncan Grant.


Criticism

Early complaints focused on a perceived cliquiness: "on personal mannerisms—the favourite phrases ('ex-quisitely civilized', and 'How ''simply too'' extraordinary!'), the incredulous, weirdly emphasised Strachey voice". After World War I, as the members of the Group "began to be famous, the execration increased, and the caricature of an idle, snobbish and self-congratulatory rentier class, promoting its own brand of high culture began to take shape": as Forster self-mockingly put it, "In came the nice fat dividends, up rose the lofty thoughts". The growing threats of the 1930s brought new criticism from younger writers of "what the last lot had done (Bloomsbury, Modernism, Eliot) in favour of what they thought of as urgent hard-hitting realism"; while "
Wyndham Lewis Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''Blast (British magazine), Blast'', the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His ...
's '' The Apes of God'', which called Bloomsbury élitist, corrupt and talentless, caused a stir" of its own. The most telling criticism, however, came perhaps from within the Group's own ranks, when on the eve of war Keynes gave a "nostalgic and disillusioned account of the pure sweet air of G. E. Moore, that belief in undisturbed individualism, that Utopianism based on a belief in human reasonableness and decency, that refusal to accept the idea of civilisation as 'a thin and precarious crust' ... Keynes's fond, elegiac repudiation of his "early beliefs", in the light of current affairs ("We completely misunderstood human nature, including our own")". In his book on the background of the Cambridge spies, Andrew Sinclair wrote about the Bloomsbury group: "rarely in the field of human endeavour has so much been written about so few who achieved so little".Andrew Sinclair, ''The Red and the Blue. Intelligence, Treason and the Universities'' (Coronet Books, Hodder and Stoughten, U.K. 1987) . page 33 American philosopher
Martha Nussbaum Martha Nussbaum (; Craven; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philos ...
was quoted in 1999 as saying "I don't like anything that sets itself up as an in-group or an elite, whether it is the Bloomsbury group or
Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida;Peeters (2013), pp. 12–13. See also 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was a French Algerian philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, ...
".Boynton, Robert S. ''The New York Times Magazine.'
Who Needs Philosophy? A Profile of Martha Nussbaum
Raymond Williams Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contribu ...
saw Bloomsbury as the invention of an ageing and lonely
Leonard Woolf Leonard Sidney Woolf (; – ) was a British List of political theorists, political theorist, author, publisher, and civil servant. He was married to author Virginia Woolf. As a member of the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party and the Fabian Socie ...
, seeking to lift himself and his friends from obscurity. To Williams, the only two so-called "members" of any significance in their respective fields were Keynes and Virginia Woolf. Williams unfavourably compared the Bloomsbury Group to the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), later known as the Pre-Raphaelites, was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossett ...
and
Arts and Crafts movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...
, finding that the older groups were more radical and consequential.


See also


Notes


References


Bibliography

* Avery, Todd.
Radio Modernism: Literature, Ethics, and the BBC, 1922–1938
'. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.; 1 January 2006. . * Bénézit, Emmanuel (editor).
Bénézit Dictionary of British Graphic Artists and Illustrators
'. Oxford University Press; 21 June 2012. . * Blythe, Ronald. in David Daiches ed., '' The Penguin Companion to Literature'' I. Penguin, 1971. * Clarke, Peter. ''Keynes.'' Bloomsbury Press, 2009. pp. 56, 57. . * Edel, Leon. ''Bloomsbury: A House of Lions'', Hogarth Press, 1979 * Fargis, Paul. ''The New York Public Library Desk Reference – 3rd Edition''. Macmillan General Reference, 1998. p. 262. . * Forster, E. M.. ''Two Cheers for Democracy''. Penguin, 1965. * Gadd, David. ''The Loving Friends: A Portrait of Bloomsbury'' London: The Hogarth Press Ltd, 1974. * Head, Dominic.
The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English
'. Cambridge University Press; 26 January 2006. . * Knights, Sarah. ''Bloomsbury's Outsider: A Life of David Garnett'', Bloomsbury Reader, Paperback and Digital, 15 May 2015, * Koppen, Randi.
Virginia Woolf, Fashion and Literary Modernity
'. Edinburgh University Press; 2009. . * Kuper, Adam.
Incest and Influence: The Private Life of Bourgeois England
'. Harvard University Press; 28 February 2010. . * Lee, Hermione. ''Virginia Woolf'' London: Chatto & Windus, 1996. * Ousby, Ian ed., ''The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English'' (Cambridge 1995) * Rosenbaum, Stanford Patrick.
The Bloomsbury Group: A Collection of Memoirs and Commentary
'. University of Toronto Press; 1995. Also published by Croom Helm, London; 1995 . * Snow, C. P.. ''Last Things''. Penguin, 1974. * Spalding, Frances. ''Virginia Woolf: Paper Darts: the Illustrated Letters'' (1991) * Tate
''Bloomsbury Group Timeline.''
Archive Journeys: Bloomsbury Group. Tate. * Tew, P. and Murray, A.. ''The Modernist Handbook'' 2009.


Further reading

Books and articles * Quentin Bell, ''Bloomsbury'', 1986. * Leon Edel, ''Bloomsbury : a house of lions'', Philadelphia : Lippincott, c 1979 * Paul Levy

''The Telegraph.'' 14 Mar 2005 * ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', 2004. * Rindert Kromhout, "Soldaten huilen niet" (Dutch Young Adult novel about the youth of Quentin 2010) * Steve Moyers

''Humanities,'' March/April 2009, Volume 30, Number 2 * Christopher Reed, ''Bloomsbury Rooms'', 2004. * S. P. Rosenbaum (ed), **''A Bloomsbury Group Reader'', 1993 **''The Bloomsbury Group: A Collection of Memoirs and Commentary'', revised edition, 1995 **''The Early Literary History of the Bloomsbury Group: Victorian Bloomsbury,'' 1987 **''Edwardian Bloomsbury'', 1994 **''Georgian Bloomsbury'', 2003 * Victoria Rosner (ed), ''The Cambridge Companion to the Bloomsbury Group'', 2014 *Derek Ryan and Stephen Ross (eds), ''The Handbook to the Bloomsbury Group'', 2018 *Richard Shone, ''Bloomsbury Portraits'' (1976). Museums and libraries
Lifestyle and Legacy of the Bloomsbury Group
Tate.

Cornell University.

Victoria University Library has a number of special collections concerning the Bloomsbury Group. Chief among these is the Virginia Woolf Collection consisting of more than 3000 items * Chapter 3: Interactive E-Book
John Maynard Keynes: The Lives of a Mind (2016)

The Keynes Centre University College Cork


External links

* {{Authority control British artist groups and collectives Cultural history of the United Kingdom Culture in London English art LGBTQ literature in the United Kingdom Literary circles Bloomsbury History of the London Borough of Camden