Member-only story
My Favourite Books on the Bloomsbury Group
In 1905, the Bloomsbury Group began as a group of writers, artists and thinkers who came together at artist Vanessa Bell’s London home to discuss and share ideas as well as support each other’s creative work, forming firm friendships along the way. Lesser-known Vanessa Bell was Virginia Woolf’s sister.
The gathering quickly became a permanent fixture for the next 3 decades, taking the name ‘Bloomsbury’ as the majority worked or lived in townhouses within the Bloomsbury district of London. They met on Thursdays and Fridays, and whilst their art was revolutionary, they were better known for their controversial ideas about lifestyle and societal living from sex, culture and liberalism. Most of them came from wealthy backgrounds. They challenged Victorian era norms and many of the members of the group had complicated relationships and affairs between them.
In 1917, Virginia Woolf and Leonard Woolf set up The Hogarth Press, publishing contemporary fiction written by Virginia Woolf herself, T.S. Eliot, Katherine Mansfield and E.M. Forster. They also published the translated works of Sigmund Freud, one of the most influential figures of the twentieth…
