Young Bloomsbury: the generation that reimagined love, freedom and self-expression

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The problem with this book is that Strachey rarely delves deeply into events and tends to highlight those who, presumably, she has, or found, more information on. Her focus isn’t on the Bloomsbury Group itself, instead she turns her gaze on the younger generations who became its avid fans and followers. Just as the original Bloomsbury Set (including Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf) had formed and caused societal stirs from the very start of the 20th century with their spirited approach to life, literature and culture - by the time the 1920s rolled around, a new era was blossoming (blooming? Pansexuality runs through everything from their discussions to their rowdy parties to the work they produce. 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.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. Unfortunately, my knowledge and interest in art is so minuscule as to have been detrimental in my understanding of several Bloomsbury figures. I think this book was perfect for me who absolutely LOVES the Bloomsbury Group but didn’t really know much about all the interconnections between the sprawling members, not to mention how it was more like a queer chosen family with everyone fucking everyone. She also does a decent job of highlighting the difficult negotiations between sexual exploration and life in a wider, hostile environment in which any overt signs of queer expression were often rigidly policed and punished. I am mostly left with a newfound appreciation for found queer families and clubs, and am happy to report they were alive and well in 1920s London.

Frankly, the only reason can independently identify Roger Senhouse is because he apparently enacted a sexy crucifixion scene with Lytton Strachey. The group 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 this book seemed jumbled, repetitive and superficial, with no real sense of the personalities or the milieux in which they existed. I don’t think these people acted from any desire to free up society as much as to get as much sex as possible with either gender which fair enough, provided it was consensual and I’m not entirely sure it always was. Any book in which the central cohort describe themselves as ‘very gay and amorous’ is going to be a winner for me tbh, and this was no exception.

Strachey begins though with a rather uninspiring, potted history of the Bloomsbury group, before moving on to the next generation – Stephen Tennant, Eddy Sackville-West, Julia Strachey, Frances Marshall and others. I had thought it would also be about the group referred to as the Bright Young Things- The Mitfords and Evelyn Waugh , for example. The hook is that this is not supposed to be about the core Bloomsburyites but about the next generation of youthful free thinkers who looked to their elders while forging their own spaces.Young Bloomsbury introduces us to this colorful cast of characters, including novelist Eddy Sackville-West, who wore elaborate make-up and dressed in satin and black velvet; artist Stephen Tomlin, who sculpted the heads of his male and female lovers; and author Julia Strachey, who wrote a searing tale of blighted love. I will say, however, that if you’re going to read this book, you should definitely read LOTE by Shola Von Reinhold as well.

The 1920s are a fascinating time in Western culture and this book dives deep into what creatives were up to at the time.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. I've read quite a number of books about Woolf, Forster, Strachey, Carrington, Grant and the rest - this was something new, an original perspective. An interesting read focused on the less-discussed younger generation of Bright Young Things who became part of the Bloomsbury circle, whether through romantic or familial relationships. We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. Revealing an aspect of history not yet explored and with “effervescent detail” (Juliet Nicolson, author of Frostquake), Young Bloomsbury celebrates an open way of living and loving that would not be embraced for another hundred years.