Bloomsbury Ballerina

The story of the splendidly unpredictable Russian dancer who ruffled the feathers of the Bloomsbury set and became the wife of John Maynard Keynes Born in 1891 in St Petersburg, Lydia Lopokova lived a long and remarkable life. Her vivacious personality and the sheer force of her charm propelled her to the top of Diaghilev's Ballet Russes. Through a combination of luck, determination and talent, Lydia became a star in Paris, a vaudeville favourite in America, the toast of Britain and then married the world-renowned economist, and formerly homosexual, John Maynard Keynes. Lydia's story links ballet and the Bloomsbury group, war, revolution and the economic policies of the super-powers. She was an immensely captivating, eccentric and irreverent personality: a bolter, a true bohemian and, eventually, an utterly devoted wife.

Provides a comprehensive guide to the storied Bloomsbury Group, a social circle of prominent intellectuals active during the interwar period.

The untold story of Shakespeare's profound influence on Virginia Woolf and the rest of the Bloomsbury Group For the men and women of the Bloomsbury Group, Shakespeare was a constant presence and a creative benchmark. Not only the works they intended for publication--the novels, biographies, economic and political writings, stage designs and reviews--but also their diaries and correspondence, their gossip and small talk turned regularly on Shakespeare. They read his plays for pleasure in the evenings, and on sunny summer afternoons in the country. They went to the theater, discussed performances, and speculated about Shakespeare's mind. As poet, as dramatist, as model and icon, as elusive "life," Shakespeare haunted their imaginations and made his way, through phrase, allusion, and oblique reference, into their own lives and art. This is a book about Shakespeare in Bloomsbury--about the role Shakespeare played in the lives of a charismatic and influential cast, including Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Clive Bell, Roger Fry, Duncan Grant, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes and Lydia Lopokova Keynes, Desmond and Molly MacCarthy, and James and Alix Strachey. All are brought to sparkling life in Marjorie Garber's intimate account of how Shakespeare provided them with a common language, a set of reference points, and a model for what they did not hesitate to call genius. Among these brilliant friends, Garber shows, Shakespeare was in effect another, if less fully acknowledged, member of the Bloomsbury Group.

“No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists.” —T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, 1921 Bloomsbury Influences is an interdisciplinary essay collection developed from papers given at Bath Spa University’s Bloomsbury Adaptations Conference. The volume explores the ways that 20th and 21st century art, drama, fiction and philosophy have been influenced and inspired by the work of the Bloomsbury Group and their London milieu. By comparing and contrasting the artistic, philosophical and literary works of the Bloomsbury Group with later artists, writers and thinkers, such as the Singh Twins, Harold Bloom, C. K. Stead, Jeanette Winterson and Ali Smith, amongst many others, each essay examines how, in T. S. Eliot’s words, the past has been “altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past”.

Samuel Koteliansky (1880-1955) fled the pogroms of Russia in 1911 and established himself as a friend of many of Britain's literati and intellectuals, who were fascinated by his homeland's more civilized side: the Ballets Russes, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov. Kot, as he was known, soon became an indispensable guide to Russian culture for England's leading writers, artists, and intellectuals, who in turn helped introduce English audiences to Russian works. A Russian Jew of Bloomsbury looks at the remarkable life and influence that an outsider had on the tightly knit circle of Britain's cultural elite. Among Koteliansky's friends were Katherine Mansfield, Leonard and Virginia Woolf - for whose Hogarth Press he translated many Russian classics - Mark Gertler, Lady Ottoline Morrell, H.G. Wells, and Dilys Powell. But it was his close and turbulent friendship with D.H. Lawrence, with whom he had copious correspondence, that proved to be Koteliansky's lasting legacy. In a lively and vibrant narrative, Galya Diment shows how, despite Kot's determination, he could never shake off the dark aspects of his past or overcome the streak of anti-Semitism that ran through British society and could be found in many of his famous literary friends. A stirring account of the early-twentieth century, Jewish émigré life, and English and Russian letters, A Russian Jew of Bloomsbury casts new light - and shadows - on the giants of English modernism.

'I wanted to climb inside this book and live there' PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE 'This witty, fascinating book is a delight. Read it' MIRIAM MARGOLYES 'Superb, sparky and reflective' The Spectator 'Gender fluidity? Pansexuality? Throuples? Chosen families? Cross-dressing? Kinks? Young Bloomsbury explores a place and time when queer life blossomed' Washington Post Controversial before the First World War, the Bloomsbury Group became notorious in the 1920s. New members joined their ranks, pushing at boundaries, flouting conventions, and spurring their seniors to new heights of creative activity. Bloomsbury had always celebrated sexual equality and freedom in private, but this younger generation brought their transgressive lifestyles out into the open. Nino Strachey reveals a vivid history surprisingly relevant to our present day. 'One comes away slightly breathless with the sense of having left an excellent party full of wit and intrigue' TLS 'Highly entertaining and pacy, a must for Bloomsbury fans, young or old.' Country Life

The Handbook to the Bloomsbury Group is the most comprehensive available survey of contemporary scholarship on the Bloomsbury Group – the set of influential writers, artists and thinkers whose members included Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, E.M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, Vanessa Bell, Clive Bell, Duncan Grant and David Garnett. With chapters written by world leading scholars in the field, the book explores novel avenues of thinking about these pivotal figures and their works opened up by the new modernist studies. It brings together overview essays with detailed illustrative case studies, and covers topics as diverse as feminism, sexuality, empire, philosophy, class, nature and the arts. Setting the agenda for future study of Bloomsbury, this is an essential resource for scholars of 20th-century modernist culture.

Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for best biography 2016 Book of the Year 2015 Sunday Times Book of the Year 2015 Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2015 Evening Standard Book of the Year 2015 New Zealand Listener Shortlisted for the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2015 Literary Sensation, Lover, Libertine, Family Man Award-winning novelist and towering figure of the 20th century British literary landscape, David Garnett was a Bloomsbury insider ultimately pushed to the margins. In this, the first biography of Garnett, (known as Bunny), author Sarah Knights – who has had unprecedented access to Garnett's papers – goes beyond stereotype and myth to present a clear sighted account of this often contradictory figure. Trained as a scientist, Garnett worked as a novelist and wrote exquisite prose. Lady into Fox was made into a Rambert ballet and Aspects of Love into an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. In the First World War, he was a conscientious objector whereas in the Second he worked for British intelligence. A free love enthusiast, he nevertheless married. He loathed literary criticism but became a leading literary critic. Born into the Victorian period, Garnett's life spanned two World Wars, the Swinging Sixties and beyond. From pre-Revolutionary Russia, by way of Indian Nationalists in London and carefree Neo-Paganism, Garnett's early life was packed with adventure. Propelled by a desire to be constantly in love, he dazzled men and women, believing the person mattered, irrespective of gender. An overnight literary sensation in the 1920s he was at the centre of literary London. Confidante and mentor of many writers, T. E. Lawrence, Rupert Brooke, D. H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells, were among his friends. Garnett felt most at home with the Bloomsbury Group, in particular with Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, his lover, with whom he lived during the First World War. Their long friendship was threatened, however, when Garnett's cradle-side prophecy to marry their daughter Angelica came true. David 'Bunny' Garnett is brought to life by Ben Lloyd-Hughes and Jack Davenport in the BBC series 'Life in Squares'.