‘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

In the 1920s a new generation stepped forward to invigorate the Bloomsbury Group – creative young people who tantalised the original ‘Bloomsberries’ with their captivating looks and provocative ideas.

Young Bloomsbury introduces us to an extraordinarily colourful cast of characters, including novelist and music critic Eddy Sackville-West, ‘who wore elaborate make-up and dressed in satin and black velvet’; sculptor Stephen Tomlin; and writer Julia Strachey. Talented and productive, these larger-than-life figures had high-achieving professional lives and extremely complicated emotional lives.

Bloomsbury had always celebrated sexual equality and freedom in private, feeling that every person had the right to live and love in the way they chose. But as transgressive self-expression became more public, this younger generation gave Old Bloomsbury a new voice. Revealing an aspect of Bloomsbury history not yet explored, Young Bloomsbury celebrates an open way of living that would not be embraced for another hundred years.

Evocative, engaging and filled with vivid details, Rooms of their Own explores the homes of these three writers linked to the Bloomsbury Group. Bringing together stories of love, desire and intimacy, of evolving relationships and erotic encounters, with vivid accounts of the settings in which they took place, it offers fresh insights into their complicated, interlocking lives. Complete with first-hand accounts, this book illuminates shifting social and moral attitudes towards sexuality and gender in the 1920s and 30s.

“I hold the conviction that as the centuries go on, and the sexes become more nearly merged on account of their increasing resemblances ? such connections will to a very large extent cease to be regarded as merely unnatural, and will be understood far better”. Vita Sackville-West, 1920

In the deep blue Turret Room at Knole sits a battered tin trunk inscribed “Edward Sackville-West: Various Papers”. Hoarded inside were the intimate records of lives lived at the heart of 1920s literary Bloomsbury. Lytton Strachey, James Strachey, Alix Strachey, Duncan Grant, Bunny Garnett and Stephen Tomlin all stayed with Eddy at Knole. Two of these friends – Duncan Grant and Stephen Tomlin – became lovers, filling his rooms with the vibrant outpourings of Bloomsbury creativity. Living in an England where homosexuality was illegal until 1967, Eddy’s design choices were boldly counter-cultural.

Eddy’s first cousin, Vita Sackville-West, and her lover, Virginia Woolf, were equally at home in this world, their names permanently associated through the publication of Orlando in 1928. Set at Knole, Woolf’s tribute to Vita created a hero/heroine who evaded categorisations of sex and time, changing as the centuries progress.

Linked by an intimate web of relationships, Eddy, Virginia and Vita created homes in Kent and East Sussex which challenged contemporary conventions. While Virginia Woolf and Eddy Sackville-West favoured the bright colours and bold patterns of Bloomsbury, Vita Sackville-West looked backwards to the Elizabethan age, filling her rooms with the romantic relics of past lovers.