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Information About

Lytton Strachey





LIFE

Strachey was born in London , the son of Sir Richard Strachey , an engineer. His sister was Dorothy Strachey . From 1899 to 1905 , he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge , having previously read history at the University Of Liverpool . The friendships he made at Cambridge with people such as John Maynard Keynes , Leonard Woolf and Clive Bell drew him into the Bloomsbury Group . From 1904 to 1914 he contributed book and drama reviews to '' The Spectator '' magazine, published poetry, and wrote an important work of Literary Criticism , ''Landmarks in French Literature'' ( 1912 ). During World War I , he was a Conscientious Objector , and spent much time with like-minded people such as Lady Ottoline Morrell and the "Bloomsberries". His first great success, and his most famous achievement, was '' Eminent Victorians '' ( 1918 ), a collection of four short biographies of Victorian heroes. With a dry wit, he exposed the human failings of his subjects and what he saw as the Hypocrisy at the centre of Victorian Morality . This work was followed in the same style by ''Queen Victoria'' ( 1921 ). He died at his country house near Hungerford in Berkshire .

Strachey's Homosexual ity was revealed in a biography ( 1967 -8) by Michael Holroyd . His unusual relationship with the painter Dora Carrington (she loved him, but Strachey was much more interested in her husband, Ralph Partridge ) was portrayed in the film ''Carrington'' ( 1995 ). Jonathan Pryce won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his performance as Strachey in this film. Strachey's letters, edited by Paul Levy , were published in 2005.


BOOKS

  • '' Landmarks In French Literature '' ( 1912 )

  • '')

  • ''Queen Victoria'' ( 1921 )

  • ''Books and Characters'' ( 1922 )

  • ''Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History'' ( 1928 )

  • ''Portraits in Miniature and Other Essays'' ( 1931 )

  • ''Characters and Commentaries'' (ed. James Strachey, 1933 )

  • ''Spectatorial Essays'' (ed. James Strachey, 1964 )

  • ''Ermyntrude and Esmeralda'' ( 1969 )

  • ''Lytton Strachey by Himself: A Self Portrait'' (ed. Michael Holroyd, 1971 )

  • ''The Really Interesting Question and Other Papers'' (ed. Paul Levy , 1972 )

  • ''The Letters of Lytton Strachey'' (ed. Paul Levy , 2005 ) ISBN 0670891126

  • VERSE

  • ''Ely: an Ode'' (written at Trinity College)



REFERENCES

  • "Lytton Strachey", Michael Holroyd 1994 , ISBN 0099332914 (paperback)

  • 'Lytton Strachey: The Art of Biography', Desmond MacCarthy. "Sunday Times" Nov. 5, 1933: 8.

  • "Lytton Strachey: his mind and art," Charles Richard Sanders. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957.

  • "The Psychological Milieu of Lytton Strachey",Martin Kallich. NY: Bookman Associates, 1961.

  • 'Nabokov and Strachey.'G.Diment. "Comparative Literature Studies" 27.4 (1990): 285-97.

  • "Lytton Strachey", John Ferns. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.

  • 'Holroyd/Strachey/Shaw: Art and Archives in Literary Biography,' Harold Fromm. "The Hudson Review", 42.2 (1989): 201-221.

  • 'Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians', Millicent Bell. "The Biographer’s Art", ed. Jeffrey Meyers. London: Macmillan Press, 1989, 53-55.

  • 'Lytton Strachey’s Elegant, Energetic Character Assassinations Destroyed for Ever the Pretensions of the Victorian Age to Moral Supremacy,'Roy Hattersley. "New Statesman" Aug. 12, 2002.



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