Victorian Bloomsbury: Volume 1: The Early Literary History of the Bloomsbury Group

327 Pages·1987·29.715 MB·English

by  S. P. Rosenbaum (auth.)

VICTORIAN BLOOMSBURY
Also by S. P. Rosenbaum
THE BLOOMSBURY GROUP: A Collection of Memoirs,
Commentary, and Criticism
VICTORIAN
BLOOMSBURY
The Early Literary History of the Bloomsbury Group
Volume 1
S. P. Rosenbaum
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-18535-1 ISBN 978-1-349-18533-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-18533-7
© S. P. Rosenbaum 1987
Softcover reprint of the hardcover Ist edition 1987
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly & Reference Division
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1987
ISBN 978-0-312-84051-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rosenbaum, S. P. (Stanford Patrick), 1929-
Victorian Bloomsbury: the early literary history
of the B100msbury Group.
"Vo1ume 1."
Bib1iography: p.
Includes index.
1. B100msbury group. 2. English literature - 20th
century - History and criticism. 3. English literature -
19th century - History and criticism. 4. University of
Cambridge - History - 19th century. 5. Cambridge
(Cambridgeshire) - Intellectual1ife. 6. Bloomsbury
(London, England) - Intellectual1ife. 7. London
(England) - Intellectua1life. I. Tide.
PR478.B46R67 1986 823'.912'09 86-3940
ISBN 978-0-312-84051-8
This history is dedicated to
Naomi Black
Contents
Acknowledgements IX
Explanation of References and Abbreviations Xill
Introduction
PART ONE ORIGINS
1 Intellectual Backgrounds 21
2 Leslie Stephen 35
3 Some Victorian Visions 58
PART TWO CAMBRIDGE: LITERARY
EDUCATION
4 History and Classics at King's and Trinity 109
5 English Literary Lectures, Reading and Essays 123
6 Modern Reading 138
PART THREE CAMBRIDGE: PHILOSOPHICAL
EDUCATION
7 Philosophy and the Cambridge Apostles 161
8 Dickinson and McTaggart 176
9 Russell 193
10 Moore 214
Vll
viii Contents
PART FOUR CAMBRIDGE WRITINGS
11 Memoirs, Aposde Papers and Other Essays 241
12 Poems, Plays, Parodies 265
Notes 279
Bibliography 288
Index 300
Acknowledgements
Though Victorian Bloomsbury is in no way an authorised literary
history of Bloomsbury's early years, nor even for that matter an
unauthorised one, it could not have been written without the
unremitting co-operation and kindness of a considerable number
ofpeople, some ofwhom were members ofthe Group themselves
or closely related to them. Many of those who have helped me
over the years I now cannot thank, but in gratitude and memory
I make no distinction here between the living and the dead.
I was fortunate to be able to talk and correspond about
Bloomsbury and its works with three of the original members of
the Group: E. M. Forster, Leonard Woolf and Duncan Grant. I
also benefited from conversations with David and Angelica
Garnett and with James and Alix Strachey. But above all it has
been Quentin Bell, the one figure in Bloomsbury fully an artist
and a writer, who has helped me longer and more often than
anyone else.
In writing on Virginia and Leonard Woolf I am much in
debted to Anne Olivier Bell and her excellent edition ofVirginia
Woolf's diary. With E. M. Forster I have been kindly helped by
his biograph er, P. N. Furbank, and his editor, Oliver Stally
brass. Michael Holroyd, Anne Wilson and Paul Levy of the
Strachey Trust have been very helpful in providing access to
Lytton Strachey's extensive unpublished writings. Desmond
MacCarthy's papers were made available to me along with
much helpful advice by Dermod MacCarthy, David and Rachel
Cecil, Chloe MacCarthy and Desmond MacCarthy. Julian Fry,
Pamela Diamand and Frances Spalding have provided
illuminating information about Roger Fry, and Frances Spalding
has also helped me valuably with Vanessa Bell's life and letters.
I have benefited from Donald Moggridge's knowledge ofKeynes
and his papers. Trekkie Parsons has kindly given me access to
Leonard Woolf's papers, and Angelica Garnett to Vanessa Bell's
papers.
IX
x Acknowledgements
A number of libraries and librarians have been indispensable
for the research in Victorian Bloomsbury. Of great assistance with
most of the Bloomsbury writers have been A. N. L. Munby of
King's College, Cambridge, and Lola Szladits of the Berg Col
lection in the New York Public Library. In addition to these two
great archivists, I am considerably indebted to Elizabeth Inglis,
and J ohn Burt as well, for repeated help with the papers of
Virginia and Leonard Woolfat the University ofSussex Library.
I have also been assisted with the Charleston Papers and the
papers of E. M. Forster and Roger Fry at King's by Peter Croft
and particularly the Modern Archivist, Michael Halls, with his
detailed knowledge of the collection. Penelope Bullock and
Marion Stewart, formerly of the King's College Library, were
also very helpful. The assistance of Leila Luedeking of the
Washington State University Library has been invaluable.
Rosemary Graham and Trevor Kaye of the Library at Trinity
College, Cambridge, assisted me with the papers of Clive Bell,
and A. E. B. Owen of the University of Cambridge Library
kindly provided copies of G. E. Moore's papers, to which
Dorothy Moore gave me access before they were sold to that
library. Judith Allen has been helpful with Keynes's papers in
the Marshall Library at Cambridge, and Ellen Dunlap of the
Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, with the
various Bloomsbury-related collections there. I am also very
grateful to the staff of the British Library for help with the
extensive Strachey papers and with manuscripts of Virginia
Woolf, J. M. Keynes, E. M. Forster and Duncan Grant, and to
the British Broadcasting Script Library for broadcasts by and
about Bloomsbury. The Robert H. Taylor Collection of the
Princeton University Library gave me access to its Strachey
papers. And back horne I am very much obliged to the staff of
the University of Toronto Libraries, in particular to Richard
Landon and Christina Duff Stewart. I have also benefited from
the excellent Bloomsbury collection of Mary Jackman at Vic
toria College, and from the help of the college librarian, Robert
Brandeis.
Various other institutions have provided financial assistance
of one kind or another for study, research and writing. For these
I thank the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement ofTeach
ing; the Guggenheim Foundation; the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada, and its predecessor,