Kansas State University

Web Resources for the Bloomsbury Group

Below you'll find web links for the authors and works we're reading this summer, as well as recommendations for further reading. Some sites are better than others; as always when using the web, evaluate not only the quantity of the information presented, but its quality (the source of that information or its sponsor, date uploaded, etc.).

General Resources

On Art

• From Realism to Post-Impressionism: Take a look at a series of paintings that trace the developments in art from the mid-19th century to c.1920.
• The "Time Line of Art History" (sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum in NY) has detailed discussions of impressionism and post-impressionism.
• A glossary of painting styles, including descriptions of impressionism and cubism.
• View Picasso's famous Les Demoiselles D'Avignon.

On Literary Periods, Genres, and Styles

Literary Periods

• W.W. Norton's site of web resources for the Norton Anthology of English Literature offers cultural and literary context for the periods in which our authors lived: The Victorian Period (1830-1901) and The Twentieth-Century.
• Alan Lui's Voice of the Shuttle page for English Literature offers links to resources for all periods of English literature.
• Jack Lynch's Literary Resources -- Twentieth Century British and Irish provides information on selected modern and contemporary authors.
• Modernism TimeLine: 1890-1940 allows you to search for a particular year or key word and find the literary context for that year.

Literary Genres and Styles

• A comparison of Victorian and Modernist ideas and some characteristics of modernism.

The Group

• Biographies
  • The Knitting Circle provides a fairly extensive overview of the Group, with hyperlinks to other areas in the site. The "Press Cuttings" provide some recent commentary about the Group.
  • The Tate Archive offers an overview of the Group, along with a timeline and a number of pictures of the members at work and play.
  • "The Bloomsbury Group . . . Artists, Writers, Thinkers" provides some biographical information about Group members and places connected with the Group.
  • See also the links for individual Group members below.
• Geographies
  • View a picture of 46 Gordon Square, where it all began.
  • 22 Hyde Park Gate, Woolf's childhood home, has been renovated for purchase: Read about the property -- and a typical description of Woolf in the public press -- in Duncan Farmer's "A luxurious flat of one's own" (The Times, 15 July 2005).
  • A history of the Bloomsbury area of London.
  • A virtual tour, sponsored by the 24 Hour Museum, for "To the Lighthouse and Beyond -- AVirginia Woolf Trail," which offers chronological and biographical information about and links to the locations Woolf and Bloomsbury made famous.
  • A photograph of Talland House, and one of the family at Talland House, from Sir Leslie Stephen's photograph album (Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College),
  • A web page on Charleston, the home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, sponsored by the Charleston Trust.
  • A site of web links on Virginia Woolf and British Gardens, including links to Kew Gardens, Talland House in Cornwall (childhood summer home of Woolf and site for To the Lighthouse), Hogarth House (original site of the Woolfs' Hogarth Press), and Sissinghurst (gardens of Vita Sackville-West). Also visit the pictures of the Woolfs' country home, Monks House, where Leonard and Virginia lived together from 1916 until her death in 1941. (Leonard continued to live here in the years following.)
• Art and Design
  • Bloomsbury: Art, Books, and Design, an exhibition at Victoria University Library, Toronto (1997). From this page, you can view works by Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Dora Carrington, Roger Fry, Quentin Bell, and Stephen Tomlin. You can also view the holdings according to the following categories: Portraits, Omega Workshops, Dust Jackets designed by Vanessa Bell, Hogarth Press Illustrated Dust Jackets, and Hogarth Press Handprinted Books.
  • Information about the Omega Workshops and the Hogarth Press.
  • The Tate Archive provides an illustrated discussion of the Group's artists.
  • A collection of paintings by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant I have assembled for our class.
  • "The Art of Bloomsbury," a special exhibit at the Tate Gallery (from 4 November to 20 January 2000) and then at the Yale Center for British Art (New Haven, CT May 20 - September 3, 2000), including Symposia on "The Art of Bloomsbury." (Link courtesy of the Internet Archive.)
  • bloomsburyart.com was set up to complement the exhibition at the Tate; this online exhibition provides links to several paintings by Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and one by Roger Fry. (Link courtesy of the Internet Archive.)
• Critical Commentaries
  • "Bloomsbury Comes in from the Cold" (the Guardian, 25 June 1999) recites the range of bitter comments that the Group can elicit from the British press, while Philip Hensher's opinion piece for the Telegraph (26 Jan 2003) offers several, mostly on Woolf..

Members of the Group

Clive Bell

• A brief biography of Clive Bell.
• Photographs of Clive Bell from the National Portrait Gallery.
• An overview of Bell's theory of aesthetics.
• An excerpt from Clive Bell's Art (1914).
• Some of Clive Bell's correspondence is held at Princeton University.

Vanessa Bell

• A brief biography of Vanessa Bell and analysis of some of her paintings.
• The Tate Museum's Archive provides information about Vanessa Bell's life and her contributions to the Group.
• A photograph of the young Vanessa Stephen from her father's photograph album, held at the Mortimer Rare Book Room at Smith College, along with Vanessa's favorite photograph of her mother, Julia Stephen.
• A selection of Vanessa Bell's works on exhibit in 1997 in Toronto; Artcyclopedia's links to Vanessa Bell's work on the web.
• View the BBC news story, "Virginia Woolf Portrait Uncovered" (5 April 2004), and the long-lost portrait Vanessa Bell painted of Virginia Woolf in 1934. "Rediscovered Portrait on Display" (Guardian, 5 April 2004) also describes and shows the portrait.
• "A Radical Regained" (Guardian, 23 Oct 1999) reviews Bell's work upon the occaison of an exhibition at the Tate.
• View the dust jackets Vanessa Bell designed for her sister Virginia Woolf's works.
• A collection of paintings by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant I have assembled for our class.

E.M. Forster

• "Aspects of E.M. Forster" provides detailed biographical information about Forster, as well as information about his works. Another site -- "Only Connect..." -- also offers detailed information.
• A brief biography of Forster at Spartacus with hyperlinks.
• Another brief biography, with an overview of Forster's literary career.
• Biographical and annotated bibliographical information provided by the Knitting Circle web page on Forster.
• Web resources on Howards End:
  • Study questions by Professor James Berg. (Link courtesy of the Internet Archive.)
  • Penguin/Putnam's Reading Guide web site forHowards End offers information about Forster, the writing of Howards End, as well as discussion questions for the novel.
  • Peter Childs (University of Gloucestershire) offers a summary and a brief anaylsis of Howards End for the Literary Encyclopedia. (For further context, consult Childs' entries for Forster's other works.)

Roger Fry

• A biography of Roger Fry.
• A brief biography which includes a quotation from Virginia Woolf's biography of Fry.
• An overview of Fry's contributions to developments in art and to the Group at the Tate Archive.
• Read about the Omega Workshops (initiated by Fry) and view some of its productions. Further information about Omega.
• A selection of Fry's art from the Courtaud Museum, posted at Art and Architecture.
• A selection of Fry's art from the Tate Museum.
• A selection of Fry's work from the exhibition "Bloomsbury: Books, Art and Design."

Duncan Grant

• The Knitting Circle's page on the artist Duncan Grant provides biographical and annotated bibliographical information.
• A selection of Grant's work.
• A collection of paintings by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant I have assembled for our class.

John Maynard Keynes

• A biography of Keynes at Spartacus with hyperlinks.
• The Knitting Circle's page on the political economist Maynard Keynes provides biographical and bibliographical information.

Desmond MacCarthy

Molly MacCarthy

Katherine Mansfield

• The New Zealand Book Council page on Mansfield provides a biography and overview of her work.
• The Books and Writers page on Mansfield also offers a biography as well as a selected bibliography.
• A brief biography from Penguin.
• Mansfield's notebooks were published in December 2002 -- read Patricia Hempl's review, "The Katherine Mansfield Notebooks': A Writer's Glimpses" (NYT, 16 March 2003) for more information and to see a picture of Mansfield.

Adrian Stephen

Karin Costelloe Stephen

Lytton Strachey

• Biographical information about the author and historian Lytton Strachey at the Harry Ransom Research Library where Strachey's papers are housed.
• The Knitting Circle's page on Lytton Strachey provides biographical and annotated bibliographical information.
• Miranda Seymour's review for the Times (13 Feb 2005) of Barabra Cain's Bombay to Bloomsbury: A Biography of the Stracheys (2005) provides some information about Lytton Strachey's family.
• Paul Levy's review of Strachey's collected letters, "Bloomsbury's Final Secret" (Telegraph, 14 March 2005), offers some previously unknown information about Strachey's life.
• Allan Hollinghurst's review, "Eminent Anti-Victorian" (New York Review of Books, 9 March 2006), of Paul Levy's edition of Strachey's letters offers further information.
• Information on Florence Nightingale, one of Strachey's Eminent Victorians:
  • Biographical information, the famous Illustrated London News wood-cut illustration, and exerpts from her writings are available from the "Florence Nightingale" page at Spartacus.
  • A brief overview of her life and work is available from the BBC History web site, as well as a link to an audio file of her voice.
  • A history of the Crimean War.
  • "Florence Nightingale, Avenging Angel" is a page devoted to a recent book and BBC production on Nightingale and the controversy surrounding its depiction of her. (From its description on this site, it would appear that Strachey was ahead of his time.) It also has links to information and photos of Scutari.
  • "Women of the World Unite..." (Guardian, 29 Jan 2005), an article about earlier manuscript versions of Nightigale's Cassandra, offers further insight into her life.
• Information about Dr. Arnold, another of Strachey's Eminent Victorians:
  • An official history of Dr. Arnold from the Rugby School web site.

Saxon Sydney-Turner

Leonard Woolf

• Brief biography of Leonard Woolf at Spartacus with hyperlinks.
• Biographical information about Leonard Woolf and information about his papers, housed at theWashington State University.
• Victoria Glendinning, a recent biographer of Leonard Woolf, talks about his life in a BBC "Great Lives" radio show (22 Oct 2004).
• Information on The Nation at Spartacus, the liberal journal Leonard Woolf edited from 1923-1930.
• Maureen Dowd's editorial for the New York Times, "History up in Smoke" (16 April 2003), concludes with the mention of Leonard Woolf's comment on occupation of other countries.

Virginia Woolf

• Biographical information on Woolf
  • A biography of Woolf at Spartacus with hyperlinks.
  • A brief biography from the BBC. (A series of links with biographical information and pictures at BBC Knowledge is no longer available, except through a link from the Internet Archive.)
  • The Guardian's Author Page for Virginia Woolf, with a brief biography and overview of her work, along with links to Guardian articles about her work.
  • A detailed chronology of Woolf's life at the Virginia Woolf Web. (Note: many links do not work, but the information in the chronology is accurate.)
  • The Knitting Circle's page on Woolf provides some biographical and annotated bibliographical information.
  • Read The New York Timesobituary for Woolf.
• "Leslie Stephen's Photograph Album" provides a collection of photographs from the album of Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), Woolf's father. The album, held in the Mortimer Rare Book Room of the Library at Smith College, offers a visual documentary of Woolf's extended family and her early life, including photographs by Julie Margart Cameron. Of special note:
  • an early photo of Woolf's mother, Julia Prinsep Jackson.
  • a photo of Julia holding Virginia.
  • a photo of a young Thoby Stephen.
  • a photo of a young Virginia and her brother Adrian playing cricket.
  • a photo of the four children at lessons.
  • a photo of Virginia reading with her mother and father.
• View several portraits of Virginia Woolf:
  • The famous (and most popular) portrait taken in 1902 by George Charles Beresford and housed at the National Portrait Gallery is available from their page of Woolf's portraits.
  • A collection of other portraits by Man Ray and Giselle Freund.
  • "Images of Virginia Woolf: An Electronic Gallery" also has a series of images.
• Hear Virginia Woolf's voice as she speaks a few words about English speech from a link available at this site. (The sound clip is also available from the BBC.)
• Hermione Lee reviews The Hyde Park Gate News: The Stephen Family Newspaper, by Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, with Thoby Stephen, edited by Gillian Low, in "To the Gate House" (Guardian, 14 Jan 2006).
• General resources and information on Woolf's work
  • The Virginia Woolf Web has been the most comprehensive of all the sites on Woolf, but its links aren't always current, and so it's now rather hit or miss. It has four parts: Life and Works of Virginia Woolf, VWWI Links 1 (Woolf Studies on the Web), VWW Links 2 (Places of Interest, Hotch-Potch, and Film), and VWW Links 3 (The Bloomsbury Group and Others), as well as other resources.
  • A wide-ranging series of links about Woolf's work through Literaryhistory.com, including links to New York Times reviews of her novels.
  • "Woolf in the World: A Pen and Press of Her Own" presents a wealth of information about her work from the archives at the Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College.
  • "Virginia Woolf: A Botanical Perspective" (Smith College) "explores the ubiquitous and powerful presence of plants and flowers in Virginia Woolf's life and work."
• Read Woolf's essay on film, "The Movies and Reality," first published in The New Republic on 4 August 1926.
• Read about the publication of early scholarship on Woolf: Ruth Gruber's Virginia Woolf: A Study (1935, 2005).
• Web resources on particular works:
  • The Voyage Out:
    • Author Michael Cunningham's essay at Salon magazine (adapted from his introduction to the Modern Library edition of The Voyage Out) provides a thoughtful discussion of this first novel and Woolf's career.
  • "Thunder at Wembly":
    • Woolf's 1924 essay responded to the extremely popular British Empire Exhibition, which ran from 1924 to 1925. "Creating Wembley: The Construction of a National Monument" not only provides a history of Wembley Stadium (which began life as part of the Empire Exhibition), but also a detailed look at the Exhibition itelf. (Link courtesy of the Internet Archive.)
    • Also view: some background and pictures of the Exhibition; a picture of the opening ceremony and commemorative stamps; an advertisement and picture of the grounds; souvenirs, with some further information about the exhibition.
  • To the Lighthouse:
    • Study questions by Cathy Decker.
    • A structural outline of To the Lighthouse by E. K. Sparks (Clemson University).
    • A reading of Woolf's narrative strategies in To the Lighthouse in light of the male and masculine modernism of Woolf's contemporaries. (Link courtesy of the Internet Archive.)
    • The fairy tale "The Fisherman and His Wife" which Mrs. Ramsay reads to James in Part I. (Another version of the tale is available as well.)
    • Poetry quoted during the novel includes Browne's "Siren's Song," Cowper's "The Castaway," Elton's "Luliana Lurilee," Shakespeare's Sonnet No. 98, and Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade." (A separate web page,"Allusions in Woolf's To the Lighthouse," should also provide the text to these poems. For historical information about the subject of Tennyson's poem, listen to "Retelling the Tale of the Light Brigade" at NPR, which includes excerpts from Tennyson's poem and a recording from 1890 of the "charge" itself on the original horn by the man who sounded it on 25 October 1854.)
    • Context for Woolf's discussion of nature in Part II: Excerpts (LIV-LVI) from Tennyson's In Memorium (link courtesy of the Internet Archive). (Alternate page: Excerpts [LV-LVI] from Tennyson's poem.)
    • Presentation on Woolf's holograph draft. (Note: Can only be viewed in Internet Explorer.)
    • Lily's painting may have been inspired by this photograph of Woolf's mother holding Vanessa, and this photograph of Julia at a window of Talland House, with Virginia and Adrian.
  • The Waves:
    • Some comments posted to the Virginia Woolf listserv about reading strategies for The Waves.
    • A detailed study guide to The Waves, featuring links to study questions, detailed character analyses, a FAQ, excerpts from contemporary reviews, and more.
  • Three Guineas:
    • Ellen Goodman's syndicated op-ed column, "Are women now insiders on the war?" (27 March 2003) looks at gender and the war with Iraq through the lens of Woolf's Three Guineas.

Related authors...

Michael Cunningham

• A brief biographical sketch.
• His essay on Woolf's The Voyage Out, at Salon magazine.
• Cunningham reflects on the translation of The Hours for the big screen in "For 'The Hours,' an Elation Mixed with Doubt" (The New York Times, 19 Jan 2003), and on the fame the novel's publication and prizes have brought in "Mrs Dalloway Started Writer on Path to Fame" (The Salisbury Post, 28 March 2004).
• Reviews and commentary on the film of The Hours:
  • Philip Hensher's vitrolic opinion piece blasts The Hours as well as Woolf's work.
  • Roberta Rubenstein's "To the Litehouse" (26 Jan 2003) in the Washington Post questions Steven Daldry's and Nicole Kidman's portrayal of Woolf in the film.
  • A Woolf biographer, Hermione Lee, offers her reading of the film in "Ways of Dying" (Guardian, 8 Feb 2003).
  • Woolf scholars, including Jane Marcus, Brenda Silver (author of Virginia Woolf Icon), and Vara Neverow (President of the International Virginia Woolf Society), are quoted in Patricia Cohen's article "The Virginia Woolf of 'The Hours' Angers the Real One's Fans" (New York Times, 15 Feb 2003).
  • An interview with playwright David Hare, "Keeping Time"(Feb 2003), about the script for The Hours.
  • An interview with Michael Cunningham and Steven Daltry (director of The Hours) at the LA Times (16 March 2003), "Breakfast with Virginia Woolf," about their experience first reading Woolf and about British reception of the film.
• In light of the film The Hours, read Woolf's essay on film, "The Movies and Reality," first published in The New Republic on 4 August 1926.

Indigo Girls

• Read the lyrics to "Virginia Woolf," a song written and performed by the Indigo Girls (Emily Saliers and Amy Ray).

Nigel Nicholson

• Read the obituary for Nicholson from The Washington Post.

Alice Walker

• Anniina's Alice Walker Page offers detailed information about Walker's life and works, with links to bibliographies, book reviews, interviews, and the works themselves.
• Recommended reading: "In Our Mother's Garden" & the Pulitzer prize-winning The Color Purple (1982).

Vita Sackville-West

• A history of writer, poet and gardener Vita Sackville-West and her amazing family home, Knole, owned since 1566 when Queen Elizabeth granted the great house to Thomas Sackville. (Vita is the model for Woolf's mock biography Orlando, published 1928.) (Link no longer available.)
• A biography of Sackville-West.
• Portraits of Vita at the National Portrait Gallery.
• Resources on Knole and Sissinghurst.

Jeanette Winterson

• The British Council's Author Page on Winterson provides a biography. (Note: In the "Critical Perspective" section of this page, the author incorrectly identifies Henri of The Passion as a woman; critics usually read this character as male.)
• Be sure to visit Jeanette Winterson's own site for a wealth of information, including Winterson's monthly columns to her readers and links to her journalism.
• The Jeanette Winterson Reader's Site offers extensive information about Winterson and her work, as well as links to interviews, criticism, and other sites.
• Read an interview with Winterson about her recent novel, The.Powerbook, at Amazon.co.uk.
• For a discussion of the way Winterson's persona has been presented in the media, you might enjoy a paper I presented a few years ago: "With 'money and a room of her own': The Legacy of Woolf's Advice for the Woman Artist at Century's End."
• Read Winterson's essay announcing her new editions of Woolf's work, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Now?", at The Times (25 May 2000).