Bloomsbury Recalled

by Quentin Bell

The author recounts anecdotes of his parents, Vanessa and Clive Bell, his aunt, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, Maynard Keynes, Anthony Blunt, and other British writers and artists

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, Biography, History, Literature, British Literature

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Quentin Claudian Stephen Bell was an English art historian and author.

Reviews

[Richard B · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of Quentin's memoirs of various members of the core Bloomsbury group, and as the book progresses it diverges into memoirs of Quentin's friends who had visited Charleston. The book ends with a short essay on Virginia's Three Guineas and a Room of One's Own and another on Maynard's My Early Beliefs. As usual Quentin's writing is very fluid and enjoyable and you can almost hear him speaking the words. Some great little anecdotes, giving further depth to the members of that circle. One for fans of Bloomsbury.

[Clarice Stasz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quentin Bell is so charming that I wish I'd known him personally. Raised in a strange way by Vanessa Bell, Quentin Bell, and Duncan Grant, he enjoyed the extraordinary benefits of knowing extended members of the Blo0msbury group of artists and intellectuals. He is self-effacing and witty in these brief portraits. It is understandable why Leonard Woolf would encourage Bell to write the first full-length biography of Virginia.

The portraits proved too varied in approach to satisfy me. The ones concerning his immediate family were most rich in depicting eccentric, lovable personalities. The one on traitor Anthony Blunt was a surprise. Who would know that Ethel Smyth was a noted composer? Robert Medley and Mary Butts are curious inclusions, more part of Bell's life than Bloomsbury's.

Thus it struck me that those without a strong background in Bloomsbury would be confused because the reader is just plopped into some anecdotes without some helpful back story. Perhaps its being his last book, published a year before he died, accounts for its uneveness. Despite these concerns, the book is a useful addition to any Bloosmbury collector.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know why it took me so long to finish this book, esp as i really liked it.
Who better to tell the story (yet again) of the Bloomsbury set, than Quentin Bell, son of Vanessa and nephew of Virginia Woolf?
I think it's the pace and organization of the book that slowed me down. Bell jumps all over the place in terms of time and relationships. Written as vignettes about individuals, there is little attempt to place things chronologically...almost as it he woke up each morning, decided who to write about (and in which period of each person's unusual and varied life), then popped it into the ongoing book willy-nilly. It took a bit of getting used to, but for anyone interested in the fascinating subject matter, it's worth the effort.