Julian Bell From Bloomsbury to the Spanish Civil War [Hardcover]

Julian Bellexplores the life of a younger member, and sole poet, of the Bloomsbury Group, the most important community of British writers and intellectuals in the twentieth century, which includes Virginia Woolf (Julian's aunt), E. M. Forster, the economist John Maynard Keynes, and the art critic Roger Fry. This biography draws upon the expanding archives on Bloomsbury to present Julian's life more completely and more personally than has been done previously. It is an intense and profound exploration of personal, sexual, intellectual, political, and literary life in England between the two world wars. Through Julian, the book provides important insights on Virginia Woolf, his mother Vanessa Bell, and other members of the Bloomsbury Group. Taking us from London to China to Spain during its civil war, the book is also the ultimately heartbreaking story of one young man's life.

Peter Stansky's revised and expanded biography of Julian Bell is a valuable addition to our knowledge of early twentieth-century English culture. It should be illuminating not just for Bloomsbury enthusiasts but also for those interested in English attitudes toward sexuality, China, and the Spanish Civil War. This biography meticulously fleshes out Bell's family relations, aesthetic efforts, and social and political commitments. . . It was a life marked by a redemptive courage, and it was, as Stansky and Abrahams show, a rich liferich in the living, and rich in the telling. Stansky revisits his and Abraham's earlier work and adds information then unavailable to create a more intimate look at this curious figure. The writers do a fine job of excerpting poems, letters, and essays to give a sense of Bell's thinking . . . [Julian Bellis] full of fresh information, [and] is particularly rich. Stansky is also very good at showing Bell resisting as well as being a direct exemplar of Bloomsbury ideas, ideals, and habits, and also as one who breaks from these . . . [Bell] offerlã'