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{{short description|Influential group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists}}
{{about|the historic literary group|the contemporary publishing company|Bloomsbury Publishing}}
{{redirect|Bloomsbury Set|the 1980s pop group|Bloomsbury Set (band)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2015}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2015}}
[[File:46 Gordon Square London.jpg|thumb|46 Gordon Square, [[Bloomsbury]], London. The economist [[John Maynard Keynes]] (1883–1946) lived here from 1916.]]

The '''Bloomsbury Group''' was a group of associated British writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the early 20th century.<ref>Fargis, p. 262</ref> Among the people involved in the group were [[Virginia Woolf]], [[John Maynard Keynes]], [[E. M. Forster]], [[Vanessa Bell]], and [[Lytton Strachey]]. Their works and outlook deeply influenced [[literature]], [[aesthetics]], [[criticism]], and [[economics]], as well as modern attitudes towards [[feminism]], [[pacifism]], and [[Human sexuality|sexuality]].<ref>''[http://bloomsbury.denise-randle.co.uk/intro.htm The Bloomsbury Group: Artists, Writers & Thinkers]'' {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101125061740/http://bloomsbury.denise-randle.co.uk/intro.htm |date=25 November 2010 }}</ref>

Although popularly thought of as a formal group, it was a loose collective of friends and relatives closely associated with the [[University of Cambridge]] for the men and [[King's College London]] for the women, who at one point lived, worked or studied together near [[Bloomsbury]], 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."<ref name="Ousby p. 95">Ousby, p. 95</ref> The historian [[Raymond Williams]] disputed the existence of the group and the extent of its impact.<ref name=":0">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).</ref>

== Origins ==
[[File:SomeBloomsburymembers.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Left to right: [[Lady Ottoline Morrell]], [[Maria Nys]] (neither members of Bloomsbury), [[Lytton Strachey]], [[Duncan Grant]], and [[Vanessa Bell]]]]

All male members of the Bloomsbury Group, except [[Duncan Grant]], were educated at [[Cambridge University|Cambridge]] (either at [[Trinity College, Cambridge|Trinity]] or [[King's College, Cambridge|King's College]]). Most of them, except [[Clive Bell]] and the Stephen brothers, were members of "the exclusive [[Cambridge]] society, the '[[Cambridge Apostles|Apostles]]'".<ref name="Blythe p. 54" /><ref name="Gadd p. 20" /> At Trinity in 1899 [[Lytton Strachey]], [[Leonard Woolf]], [[Saxon Sydney-Turner]] and [[Clive Bell]] became good friends with [[Thoby Stephen]], and it was through Thoby and [[Adrian Stephen]]'s sisters [[Vanessa Bell|Vanessa]] and [[Virginia Woolf|Virginia]] that the men met the women of [[Bloomsbury]] when they came down to London.<ref name="Blythe p. 54">Blythe, p. 54</ref><ref name="Gadd p. 20">Gadd, p. 20</ref>

In 1905 Vanessa began the "Friday Club" and Thoby ran "Thursday Evenings", which became the basis for the Bloomsbury Group,<ref name="Timeline">Tate, Bloomsbury timeline</ref> which to some was really "Cambridge in London".<ref name="Blythe p. 54" /> Thoby's premature death in 1906 brought them more firmly together<ref name="Gadd p. 20" /> 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.<ref>Rosenbaum, p. 142</ref>

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]]".<ref name="Blythe p. 54" /> It was an informal network<ref>Gadd, pp. 1, 45</ref><ref>Kuper p. 224</ref> of an influential group of artists, art critics, writers and an economist, many of whom lived in [[London postal district|the West Central 1 district of London]] known as [[Bloomsbury]].<ref name="Avery p. 33">Avery, p. 33.</ref> 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."<ref name="Kuper p. 241">Kuper, p. 241.</ref>

A historical feature of these friends and relations is that their close relationships all pre-dated their fame as writers, artists, and thinkers.<ref name="Clark p. 56" />

== Membership ==
[[File:Bloomsbury Group 51 Gordon Square blue plaque.jpg|thumb|Blue plaque, 50 [[Gordon Square]], London]]
{{Main|List of Bloomsbury Group people}}

=== Members ===
The group had ten core members:<ref name="Avery p. 33" />
{{Div col}}
* [[Clive Bell]], art critic
* [[Vanessa Bell]], post-impressionist painter
* [[E. M. Forster]], fiction writer
* [[Roger Fry]], art critic and post-impressionist painter
* [[Duncan Grant]], post-impressionist painter
* [[John Maynard Keynes]], economist
* [[Desmond MacCarthy]], literary journalist
* [[Lytton Strachey]], biographer
* [[Leonard Woolf]], essayist and non-fiction writer
* [[Virginia Woolf]], fiction writer and essayist
{{div col end}}

In addition to these ten, [[Leonard Woolf]], in the 1960s, listed as "Old Bloomsbury" [[Adrian Stephen|Adrian]] and [[Karin Stephen]], [[Saxon Sydney-Turner]], and [[Mary (Molly) MacCarthy|Molly MacCarthy]], with [[Julian Bell]], [[Quentin Bell]] and [[Angelica Garnett|Angelica Bell]], and [[David Garnett]]<ref>Knights, S., 2015</ref> as "later additions".<ref name="Lee p. 263">Lee, p. 263</ref> Except for Forster, who published three novels before the highly successful ''Howards End'' in 1910, the group were late developers.<ref name="Gadd, p. 103-7">Gadd, p. 103-7</ref>

There were stable marriages and varied and complicated affairs among the individual members.<ref name="Kuper p. 241" /> Lytton Strachey{{refn||group="nb"|name="Duke Library"}} and his cousin and lover [[Duncan Grant]]<ref>Kuger, p. 231–232</ref> 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.<ref name="Gadd p. 20" />
[[File:Charleston Farmhouse, view from the pond.jpg|thumb|[[Charleston Farmhouse]], where Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved in 1916]]

The group met not only in their homes in Bloomsbury, [[central London]], but also at countryside retreats. There are two significant ones near [[Lewes]] in Sussex: [[Charleston Farmhouse]],{{refn|See [http://www.charleston.org.uk/ Charleston House], A Bloomsbury Home and Garden.|group="nb"}} where Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved in 1916, and [[Monk's House]] (now owned by the [[National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty|National Trust]]),{{refn|Monk's House Photograph albums at Houghton Library, Harvard University: [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL.HOUGH:4458847 1863-1938], [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL.HOUGH:4394409 1909-1922.], [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL.HOUGH:4394410 1890-1933], [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL.HOUGH:4395032 1890-1947], [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL.HOUGH:4395033 1892-1938] and [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL.HOUGH:4420078 1850-1900].|group="nb"}} in [[Rodmell]], owned by Virginia and Leonard Woolf from 1919.<ref>Rosenbaum, pp. 208, 430–431, 437</ref>

===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".<ref>Lee, p. 262</ref>

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,<ref name="Clark p. 56">Clarke, p. 56</ref> 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]], [[Hugh Walpole]]".<ref name="Lee p. 263" /> Another is [[Vita Sackville-West]], who became "[[Hogarth Press]]'s best-selling author".<ref>Lee, p. 447</ref> Members cited in "other lists might include [[Lady Ottoline Morrell|Ottoline Morrell]], or [[Dora Carrington]], or [[James Strachey|James]] and [[Alix Strachey]]".<ref name="Lee p. 263" />

==Shared ideas==
[[File:Duncan Grant with John Maynard Keynes.jpg|alt=Duncan Grant and John Maynard Keynes photographed facing each other c.1913.|thumb|[[Duncan Grant]] and [[John Maynard Keynes]] c. 1913.]]
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]]: "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'".<ref name="Blythe p. 54"/>

=== Philosophy and ethics ===
Through the Apostles they also encountered the analytic philosophers [[G. E. Moore]] and [[Bertrand Russell]] 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]]'' (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".<ref>Forster, pp. 64, 96</ref>

===Rejection of bourgeois habits===
[[File:Virginia and Leonard Woolf, 1912.jpg|thumb|[[Virginia Woolf]] and her husband [[Leonard Woolf]] in 1912]]
Bloomsbury reacted against current upper class English social rituals, "the [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] habits&nbsp;... the conventions of Victorian life"<ref>Lee, p. 54</ref> with their emphasis on public achievement, in favour of a more informal and private focus on [[personal relationship]]s 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",<ref>Forster, p. 111</ref> 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".<ref>Forster, p. 76</ref>

The Group "believed in pleasure&nbsp;... They tried to get the maximum of pleasure out of their personal relations. If this meant [[Love triangle|triangles]] or more complicated geometric figures, well then, one accepted that too".<ref>Snow, p. 84</ref> 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".<ref>Quoted in Lee, p. 268</ref>

===Politics===
Politically, Bloomsbury held mainly [[left-liberal]] stances (opposed to [[militarism]], 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".<ref>Lee, pp. 263, 613</ref>

The campaign for [[women's suffrage]] 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.<ref>Koppen, p. 16.</ref>

===Art===
[[File:Clive Bell.jpg|thumb|Portrait of [[Clive Bell]] by [[Roger Fry]] ({{circa}} 1924)]]
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.<ref name="Gadd, p. 103-7" />{{refn|Bloomsbury was also part of Fry's extension of post-impressionism into the decorative arts with his [[Omega Workshops]], which lasted until 1920.<ref name="Gadd, p. 103-7" />|group="nb"}} Fry and other Bloomsbury artists rejected the traditional distinction between fine and decorative art.<ref>Oxford University Press, p. 477</ref>{{refn|[http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/bloomsbury/index.html Manuscripts and Woodcuts: Visions and Designs from Bloomsbury – Duke University Libraries Digital Collections] Includes 12 woodcuts by [[Roger Fry]] and the manuscript of ''Elizabeth and Essex'' written in [[Lytton Strachey]]'s hand with 7 miscellaneous manuscript letters.|group="nb"|name="Duke Library"}}

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":<ref>Ousby, p. 71</ref> it has been suggested that, with their "focus on form&nbsp;...Bell's ideas have come to stand in for, perhaps too much so, the aesthetic principles of the Bloomsbury Group".<ref>Tew and Murray, p. 122, 127</ref>

The establishment's hostility to post-impressionism made Bloomsbury controversial, and controversial they have remained. Clive Bell polemicized{{clarify|date=April 2014}}<!--a polemic is an attack; but was he attacking post-impressionism, or violently defending it?--> 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".<ref name="Lee p. 265">Lee, p. 265</ref>

=== World War I ===
[[File:Nina Hamnett.jpg|thumbnail|right|[[Nina Hamnett]] painted by [[Roger Fry]], 1917, in a dress designed by [[Vanessa Bell]] and made at the [[Omega Workshops]]. The shoes may also be from Omega and the cushion on the chair is covered with 'Maud' linen, also by Bell.]]
Old Bloomsbury's development was affected, along with much of [[modernism|modernist]] culture, by the [[First World War]]: "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".<ref>Gadd, p. 63</ref> Most but not all of them were conscientious objectors. Politically, the members of Bloomsbury had liberal and socialist leanings.<ref>Rosenbaum, p. 112, 393</ref>

Though the war dispersed Old Bloomsbury, the individuals continued to develop their careers. E. M. Forster followed his successful novels with ''[[Maurice (novel)|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]], which would publish [[T. S. Eliot]], [[Katherine Mansfield]], and many others including Virginia herself along with the standard English translations of [[Freud]]. Then in 1918 Lytton Strachey published his critique of [[Victorian morality|Victorianism]] in the shape of four iconoclastic biographies in ''[[Eminent Victorians]],'' which added to the arguments about Bloomsbury that continue to this day, and "brought him the triumph he had always longed for&nbsp;... The book was a sensation".<ref>Gadd, p. 133</ref>

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 prominent economist and political economist of international eminence.<ref>Gadd, p. 124</ref>

=== Attire ===
Bloomsbury members became known for distinctive garments; Woolf in particular was opposed to conventions surrounding formal attire, such as "dressing for dinner".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Williams |first=Holly |date=2 November 2023 |title=How Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury group unbuttoned Britain |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20231031-how-virginia-woolf-and-the-bloomsbury-group-unbuttoned-britain |access-date=2024-07-28 |website=BBC: Style |language=en-GB}}</ref>

== Later Bloomsbury ==
The 1920s were in a number of ways the blooming of Bloomsbury. Virginia Woolf was writing and publishing her most widely-read [[Literary modernism|modernist novels and essays]], and E. M. Forster completed ''[[A Passage to India]]'' (1924), a highly regarded novel on [[British India|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 of the ''[[New Statesman]]'' and of ''[[The Nation and Athenaeum]]'' respectively, 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]] tracks".<ref>Gadd, p. 112</ref>

In the darkening 1930s, Bloomsbury began to die: "Bloomsbury itself was hardly any longer a focus".<ref>Gadd, p. 191</ref> Shortly after publishing a collection of brief lives, ''Portraits in Miniature'' (1931),<ref>{{cite news |title= NEW STRACHEY BOOK DEPICTS UNKNOWNS; "Portraits in Miniature" Gives New Renown to Personalities Unfamiliar in History. ALSO WEIGHS HISTORIANS Macaulay's Lack of Emotion and Carlyle's Excess of Genius Are Remarked as Handicaps. |work= The New York Times |date= 16 July 1931 |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1931/07/16/archives/new-strachey-book-depicts-unknowns-portraits-in-miniature-gives-new.html |access-date =24 July 2023}}</ref> Lytton Strachey died in January 1932;<ref name="Rosenbaum p. xi">Rosenbaum, p. xi</ref> subsequently Carrington shot herself (March 1932). Roger Fry died in 1934.<ref name="Rosenbaum p. xi" /> Vanessa and Clive's eldest son, [[Julian Bell]], was killed in 1937 during the [[Spanish Civil War]].<ref name="Timeline" /> Virginia Woolf wrote [[Roger Fry: A Biography|Fry's biography]], but with the coming of war again her mental instability recurred, and she drowned herself in 1941.<ref name="Rosenbaum p. xi" /> In the previous decade she had become one of the century's most famous [[List of feminist literature|feminist writers]] with three more novels, and a series of essays including the moving late memoir "[[A Sketch of the Past]]" (1939). 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]]'' 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.{{citation needed|date=January 2014}}

The diversity yet [[social collectivity | collectivity]] of Later Bloomsbury's ideas and achievements can be summed up in a series of credos produced in 1938, the year of the [[Munich Agreement]]. 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]] pamphlet (he later supported the war), and E. M. Forster wrote an early version of his famous essay [[What I Believe (E. M. Forster essay)| "What I Believe"]] with its choice of personal relations over patriotism: his quiet assertion in the face of the increasingly [[Totalitarianism|totalitarian]] claims of both left and right that "personal relations&nbsp;... love and loyalty to an individual can run counter to the claims of the State".<ref>Forster, p. 76-7</ref>

== Memoir Club ==
{{Expand section|date=May 2023}}
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)".<ref>Lee, p. 436</ref> It met until 1956<ref>Rosenbaum, p. xxxii</ref> or 1964.<ref>Spalding 1991, p. 13</ref> The club was made up of members of the Bloomsbury Group, a loose collective of artists, writers, intellectuals, and philosophers.

==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".<ref>Lee, p. 267</ref> 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 capitalism|rentier class]], promoting its own brand of high culture began to take shape":<ref name="Lee p. 265" /> as Forster self-mockingly put it, "In came the nice fat dividends, up rose the lofty thoughts".<ref>Forster, p. 65</ref>

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]]'s ''[[The Apes of God]]'', which called Bloomsbury élitist, corrupt and talentless, caused a stir"<ref>Lee, pp. 612, 622</ref> 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'&nbsp;... Keynes's fond, elegiac repudiation of his "early beliefs", in the light of current affairs ("We completely misunderstood human nature, including our own")".<ref>Lee, p. 712</ref>

In his book on the background of the [[Cambridge Five|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".<ref>Andrew Sinclair, ''The Red and the Blue. Intelligence, Treason and the Universities'' (Coronet Books, Hodder and Stoughten, U.K. 1987) {{ISBN|0-340-41687-4}}. page 33</ref> American philosopher [[Martha Nussbaum]] 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 [[Jacques Derrida|Derrida]]".<ref name="robertboynton1">Boynton, Robert S. ''The New York Times Magazine.'' [http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=55 Who Needs Philosophy? A Profile of Martha Nussbaum] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110523173436/http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=55 |date=23 May 2011 }}</ref>

[[Raymond Williams]] saw Bloomsbury as the invention of an ageing and lonely [[Leonard Woolf]], 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.<ref name=":0" /> Williams unfavourably compared the Bloomsbury Group to the [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood]] and [[Arts and Crafts movement]], finding that the older groups were more radical and consequential.

== See also ==
{{Columns-list|colwidth=22em|
* [[Arthur Waley]]
* [[Dreadnought hoax|''Dreadnought'' hoax]]
* [[Generation gap|Generation Gap]]
* [[Heterosociality]]
* [[LGBT social movements]]
* [[Lost Generation]]
* [[Opposition to World War I]]
* [[Roy Campbell (poet)|Roy Campbell]], who attacked the group in ''The Georgiad'' (1931)
}}

==Notes==
{{reflist|group="nb"}}

== References ==
{{reflist|20em}}

== Bibliography ==
* Avery, Todd. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=G5H7x-OnqpEC&pg=PA33 Radio Modernism: Literature, Ethics, and the BBC, 1922–1938]''. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.; 1 January 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-7546-5517-6}}.
* [[Emmanuel Bénézit|Bénézit, Emmanuel]] (editor). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=05C02RhJZCkC&pg=PA477 Bénézit Dictionary of British Graphic Artists and Illustrators]''. Oxford University Press; 21 June 2012. {{ISBN|978-0-19-992305-2}}.
* Blythe, Ronald. in David Daiches ed., ''[[The Penguin Companion to Literature]]'' I. Penguin, 1971.
* Clarke, Peter. ''Keynes.'' Bloomsbury Press, 2009. pp.&nbsp;56, 57. {{ISBN|978-1-60819-023-2}}.
* 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.&nbsp;262. {{ISBN|0-02-862169-7}}.
* 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. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=rQINrHtwNU0C&pg=PA114 The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English]''. Cambridge University Press; 26 January 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-521-83179-6}}.
* Knights, Sarah. ''Bloomsbury's Outsider: A Life of David Garnett'', Bloomsbury Reader, Paperback and Digital, 15 May 2015, {{ISBN|978-1-4482-1545-4}}
* Koppen, Randi. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=5eJAB6albTIC&pg=PA16 Virginia Woolf, Fashion and Literary Modernity]''. Edinburgh University Press; 2009. {{ISBN|978-0-7486-3872-7}}.
* Kuper, Adam. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=EuZCutNuH5IC&pg=PA232 Incest and Influence: The Private Life of Bourgeois England]''. Harvard University Press; 28 February 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-674-05414-1}}.
* Lee, Hermione. ''Virginia Woolf'' London: Chatto & Windus, 1996.
* [[Ian Ousby|Ousby, Ian]] ed., ''The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English'' (Cambridge 1995)
* Rosenbaum, Stanford Patrick. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=c62MaaE8PZMC&pg=PA430 The Bloomsbury Group: A Collection of Memoirs and Commentary]''. University of Toronto Press; 1995. {{ISBN|978-0-8020-7640-3}} Also published by Croom Helm, London; 1995 {{ISBN|085664-285-1}}. 
* Snow, C. P.. ''Last Things''. Penguin, 1974.
* [[Frances Spalding|Spalding, Frances]]. ''Virginia Woolf: Paper Darts: the Illustrated Letters'' (1991)
* Tate. [http://www2.tate.org.uk/archivejourneys/bloomsburyhtml/timeline.htm ''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, [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3638752/Bloomsburys-final-secret.html "Bloomsbury's Final Secret"]. ''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. [https://web.archive.org/web/20090511171123/http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2009-03/Manners.html "British Modernism's Many Manners ."] ''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'''
* [https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/b/bloomsbury/lifestyle-lives-and-legacy-bloomsbury-group Lifestyle and Legacy of the Bloomsbury Group]. Tate.
* [https://museum.cornell.edu/bloomsbury/home.htm "A Room of Their Own: The Bloomsbury Artists in American Collections"]. Cornell University.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110611121706/http://library.vicu.utoronto.ca/special/bloomsbury.htm The Bloomsbury Group Collection at the Victoria University Library at the University of Toronto] 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 ''[http://jmaynardkeynes.ucc.ie/ John Maynard Keynes: The Lives of a Mind (2016)]'' [http://keynes.ucc.ie/ The Keynes Centre University College Cork].

== External links ==
* {{Commons-inline}}

{{Bloomsbury}}
{{Bloomsbury Group}}
{{Virginia Woolf}}
{{John Maynard Keynes}}
{{E. M. Forster}}

{{Authority control}}

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