Young Bloomsbury

“Illuminating… When it came to sex, the Bright Young Things of the 1920s were 100 years ahead of their time.”   — Daily Mail (UK)

 

“A superb, sparky and reflective book charting the doings of the younger members of the artistic and intellectual coterie.”  —The Spectator (UK)
 

“This witty, fascinating book is a delight. Read it.” —Miriam Margolyes

“Young Bloomsbury just BRIMS with the same kind of sexy vitality embodied by the characters Nino Strachey describes in such effervescent detail. Just when you might have wondered if there could possibly be room for a new and revealing study of a group of lives which have been so meticulously and extensively documented, Nino's exhilarating lens offers an entirely original and thrilling focus. As skepticism, admiration, envy, and confusion ebb and flow between one chattering, seductive, thinking, inspiring generation and another, this is Gatsby made real.”—Juliet Nicolson, author of Frostquake: The frozen winter of 1962

“With a deft turn of the Bloomsbury kaleidoscope, and an impressive gift for finding treasures in the archives, Nino Strachey reveals colorful new patterns of experiments in living which speak trenchantly to our own cultural moment.” —Mark Hussey, author of Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism

“Great fun and, for all fans of the Bloomsbury Group, enormously informative - like being transported back to ‘dancing the night hours away underground in the pitch dark and smoke-filled avant-garde nightclubs of that day,’ you never know who you're going to meet.” —Simon Fenwick, author of The Crichel Boys

“Above all else, Bloomsbury was a liberating force, as Nino Strachey shows in her sparkling new book. The younger friends and relations of the Bells, Stracheys and Woolfs lived, worked and loved freely, finding their own ways to personal and artistic fulfilment. This book is packed with their brilliant, subversive energy” —Anne Chrisholm, author of Frances Partridge: A Biography

“A lively account of a group of bright young things in the 1920s. A hundred years ahead of their time, these creative souls were pushing the boundaries of gender identity and sexual expression, and - surprisingly - finding acceptance among their friends and families.” —Robert Sackville-West, author of The Searchers: The Quest for the Lost of the First World War

“This lively group biography offers an intimate glimpse of the Bright Young Things, the artistic coterie that emerged in the nineteen-twenties as successors to the prewar Bloomsburyites.” —The New Yorker

“This captivating history explores the second generation of queer British writers and artists who pushed the original Bloomsbury Group, which included Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster, to live more publicly and go farther creatively.” —The New York Times

“There is much for Americans to learn from and celebrate in this lively account of Bloomsbury’s freethinking pioneers.”  —Washington Post

“A brisk, light tonic. . . . [Strachey] provides frothy accounts of their gatherings. . . . For each rising generation there’s reason to illuminate again their particular, if fleeting, triumphs.” —Claire Mussud, Harper’s Magazine

“It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that the story of Bloomsbury is the story of modern literary biography itself.”   —Wall Street Journal

“In this sharp, thoughtful look at the group, their work, and its impact, Nino Strachey shines a light on cultural masterminds whose lives and work would change the world forever.” —Town & Country

“The author’s group portrait is both enlightening and fond…and does literature a great favor by gifting them with this fascinating account.” —Booklist

“Insightfully analyzes the substance of Bloomsbury’s social network, how their lives intertwined as a kind of queer chosen family, and how they adapted to heteronormative expectations while remaining true to their desires and identities…Written in lucid prose, this is a dream to read for those interested in queer history.” —Kirkus