Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Ignotus, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 942 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Was this life really so interesting?
It is indeed a courageous undertaking to write the biography of the man who reinvented the genre. But, going by all the praise lavished on his life of Lytton Strachey, Holroyd has succeeded. And surely he cannot be faulted for his style of writing, which is lively, expressive, subtly humorous, and makes inventive use of metaphor. And yet, and yet... I became interested in Strachey not so much through reading his "Queen Victoria" which, frankly, I found rather boring and surprisingly humourless; but after seeing the movie "Carrington", based on Holroyds biography; - and much as I hate to say this, I liked the movie better.
The main problem simply is that Strachey's life was too uneventful to command attention for nearly 700 pages. What you end up with is this image of an old-maidish, pampered, and astonishingly self-centred man forever reading books in the aloofness of his country cottage while unaccountably being the object of universal adoration. The final and supposedly climactic love-affair with Roger Senhouse might have provided some eleventh-hour excitement, but honestly doesn't amount to more than the cliché of the unattractive (but intelligent, rich and famous) middle aged man infatuated with the vapid, reluctant and opportunistic (but very pretty) much younger man.
Surely Holroyd is a bit to blame as well for not gaining full hold of our (well, at least my) attention. Here we have The Apostles and the "Bloomsberries" in their heyday, with Diaghilev, Nijinsky and the likes casually thrown in as well. An incredible collection of brilliant and colourful people; and yet all they seem to occupy themselves with is bourgeois bickerings, common gossip, parties, parties, parties, and amorous obsessions of a peculiarly puerile nature. Where is all the wit and dazzling conversation that is frequently reported by Holroyd, but rarely demonstrated? We're told about a lot of people and things, but they remain abstractions. Even a character as bizarre as Ottoline Morrell remains a mere cipher. The frequent trips to France and Spain read like depersonalised itenaries from a travel agent's brochure, and we are kept in the dark about their meaning in Lytton's life.
Unfortunately Holroyd reverts to an overdose of Freudian psycho-analytical blabla to lend depth to his characters. This largely obsolete approach to psychology remains a staple of biographers, probably because it offers such metaphorically appealing instant explanations of all relational problems and personal obsessions. Seeing rather too much of Mama lately? - hello Oedipus! Such off-the-peg explanations add very little to our understanding of the person. Actually I didn't find this book all too insightful psychologically speaking. E.g., the bouts of anxiety and depression that troubled Carrington in her final years pop up out of nowhere as a rather too hasty prelude to her suicide. Her complicated relationship with Strachey is underplayed, so that at times she emerges more like a luxury housekeeper with a talent for painting than as Strachey's ticket to survival. For clearly it was she alone who saved him from utter and desparate loneliness (as well as he her). Gretchen Gerzina's biography of Carrington, in all its compactness, is much closer to the essence and tragedy of both Carrington's and Lytton's personalities, and the peculiar chemistry between them, it seems to me.
Another strange thing is that we get to know just about nothing about Strachey's sexual pursuits. Now call me unhealthily curious if you like, but Lytton himself was known to speak disparagingly of Virginia Woolf's books because of their 'lack of copulation'. So where is his own? How can you write 700 pages about one of the most notable and visible homosexuals in England at the time, and yet in the end leave the reader uncertain whether the man ever had any sexual contacts with anyone at all???
And the other, more troubling question that remains in the end is: why would this man deserve so much attention? His lasting output amounts to no more than three books. And Strachey may have thought Forster (another spectre relegated to the sidelines by Holroyd) a dreary 'old maid' (projection, the dedicated Freudian might wonder?), but himself certainly never mustered the courage or conviction to write something like "Maurice", let alone anything else approaching Forster's novelistic output! And output aside, Marie-Jacqueline Lancaster has shown in her collectors-item biography of Brian Howard, who was in many ways Strachey's extroverted counterpart, that you can even write a fascinating book about somebody who produced literally nothing at all of worth during his lifetime (could somebody please reprint this book!). Starting on Holroyds book I expected a classic like Furbank's Forster or Ellman's Wilde. Alas, it wasn't so; which is partly due to the fact that Strachey was simply a more superficial and less tragic or extravagant figure than either of these; and partly to the fact that Holroyd fails to make the most of the brilliant company he associated with.

An excellent biography of a key figure in Bloomsbury.
Lytton Strachey was one of the key figures in the Bloomsbury group, and one of Virginia Wolf's best friends.He is best known today for his portraits of four famous Victorians in "Emminent Victorians."At the time, the book was something of piece of generational warfare; the figures that Strachey dismantles were models of piety and determination held up to Strachey's generation when they were young as the sort of people to emulate. Strachey, who was one of the wittiest men of his time, shows that actually they were something of narrowminded fanatics.

Holroyd's biography is a superb portrait of Strachey and the circle he moved in.Well-documented, it brings to life many people never well-known in America.Strachey's personal life was extremely complicated; a woman named Carrington (she refused to use her first name which was Dora) fell desparately in love with him.This was unfortunate for her because Strachey was a confirmed homosexual. When examined for possible conscription during the First World War, he was asked what he would due if he saw a German trying to rape his sister; his response was "I should try to come between them."This made no difference to Carrington, whose love for him was so great that she committed suicide after his death.Carrington, and other figures who became involved in Strachey's complicated life make this almost a group biography.In fact, the biography was rereleased in connection with the movie "Carrington" (starred Emma Thompson in the title role and Jonathan Pryce as Strachey) and on the cover Carrington's name is in type as big as that used for Lytton Strachey. Holroyd's writing style is fluid, and his eye for a tellng anecdote make the biography eminently readable.One does not have to be obsessed with Bloomsbury to enjoy this book.

Great Nostalgia
I remember when I first saw this immense book that Lytton Strachey must be a person of some importance. As I had at that point never heard of Lytton I was surprised that a person of such importance had escaped my notice. It was then that I discovered one of the important things in understanding books. The size is often related to the amount of material available rather than the importance of the person.

Lytton Strachey was an English writer in the interwar period. He wrote a number of histories including a biography of Queen Victoria and another work called Eminent Victorians. At the time it was published Eminent Victorians was seen as a savage attack on the reputation of a number of English heroes. Nowadays it seen as an affectionate but realistic portrait of a number of figures who were previously given mythical status.

The biography of Strachey is really a biography of the Bloomsbury Group. Keynes, Virginia Wolf and the others who lived or met around the London Suburb of Bloomsbury. It tells of their affairs, the ups and downs of their lives and how they interconnected.

The portrait of Strachey is a gentle and affectionate one. Strachey was a person who was gay. He married Carrington a woman who became a minor artist. Their relationship has been turned into a recent film.

The book is quite long but it is the portrait of an England that is long since gone. A description of a number of people who were once at the centre of their nations cultural life. It is a book that is gently endearing.

A Forgotten Artist
Michael Holroyd's landmark biography of Lytton Strachey - a once-bright luminary of the Bloomsbury Group (including Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster,John Maynard Keynes and others) - keeps the spirit and achievement of thisgreat writer alive for future generations.Strachey is probably known now,if at all, for the eccentric figure portrayed in the film"Carrington" but his contributions to the art of biography go farbeyond what the film conveyed.Holroyd does an excellent job of capturingthe milieu of Strachey's times, in particular London and the surroundingcountryside (where Strachey lived in a succession of cottages) in the earlypart of the 20th century.Not only is Strachey's admittedly idiosyncraticpersonality expertly portrayed, we also get a strong sense of other equallyunique individuals who played such an important part in his life (OttolineMorrell, for one).Holroyd also writes in a flowing, sometimes complicatedmanner, but this is a welcome change from dryer, academic recitations ofdates and places.In fact, the narrative often reads like a long novelwith a relaxed pace.It's also extremely forthright about Strachey'ssexual inclinations - in fact, at its original publication in the mid-60s,it was among the first to be so forthcoming.In all, Holroyd is to besaluted for making Lytton Strachey's achievements better known (especiallyhis book, "Eminent Victorians," which freed the biographical formfrom more conventional restrictions from the l9th century.) ... Read more

Product Description
Vol I takes the reader from Lytton's birth in 1880 to 1910 when he broke away from influences of family and embarked on writing full-length works -Lytton Strachey himself changed the course of English biography with the impressionistic fusing of fact and reflection which he brought to bear on the four subjects of Eminent Victorians.Vol ll - covers the Great War and 1920's when the influence of the Bloomsbury Group was at its strongest and Lytton's personal fame became international. This volume completes a life which is certain to take a place in the history of Englich biographical studies worthy of Strachey himself. It is massive, revelatory, and unsparing, and reverberates in the mind like a great classic novel. ... Read more

Product Description
2 Volumes in Slipcase ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (3)

The original slacker
Lytton Strachey, largely forgotten now, was once famous for his biographical sketches, which today look like crude caricatures; for his style, which today seems mechanical and gimmicky; and for his literary criticism, so perverse it is as entertaining now as it has ever been.One of his heroes was Pope (not the Holy Father, but the 18th century English poet who has since slipped into oblivion and will not be troubling us again).

In this volume, Paul Levy provides succinct, useful and not overly tendentious annotations for the letters he has selected from Strachey's voluminous correspondence.The letters themselves are disappointing, consisting mostly of bland gossip interspersed with feeble ("yo mama") put-downs that do nothing to enhance Strachey's reputation for fearsomeness.In fact, when fame and fortune descend on Strachey mid-way through this volume he begins to mellow out and in time becomes almost sweet.But with the advent of the sinister Senhouse the letters become disturbing, and remain so, right to the bitter end.

If one takes these letters at face value, Strachey is forever going to parties in order to subject himself to the conversation of imbeciles and terrible bores.(He seems to get huge enjoyment out of making nasty remarks about anyone and everyone--surely a dangerous occupation for a valetudinarian bookworm who resembles nothing so much as a grasshopper.Small wonder he is so out of sympathy with his doppelganger, Aldous Huxley!)He pretends to despise the upper classes and the rich, whose hospitality he regularly accepts.(In a letter to his mom, he gleefully boasts that he is off for "a weekend at the Duchess of Marlborough's!")

In these letters, Strachey shows himself to be thoroughly bourgeois, whether he is bemoaning the loss of his custom-tailored shirts, being exasperated at the servants, gloating over his book sales or luxuriating in his grand new bed in his comfortable country home.

To be fair to him, though, his complacency and superciliousness do now and again give way to an acute consciousness of his limitations, as a writer and as a person.And the reader who can endure the tedium and soldier on to the end of the book will find it difficult not to feel some sympathy for a man who, convinced deep down he was unlovable, so desperately longed to be loved.

Fascinating correspondence by one of Bloomsbury's most eloquent and interesting members
These letters by Lytton Strachey, writer and member of the Bloomsbury group of artists, reveal much about the man, the time in which he lived, and the circle of artists with which he surrounded himself. I've read several reviews about this book in which Strachey is described as an old maid of a man spending his time doing nothing but reading books and complaining about his health. However, this collection of his personal correspondence reveals him to be much more complex than that.

In several ways he seems to be a very tragic figure. For one, he is deeply in love with someone with whom, due to his homosexuality, he will never be sexually compatible - Dora Carrington - and he is sexually compatible with a series of people with whom the love part of the relationship never quite comes off. Although his many letters to Carrington often talk about his travels and the practical matters of the household that they shared for 15 years, there are at least three or four that are genuine love letters uncomparable to any that he wrote to any of his lovers, including Roger Senhouse, with whom he was involved the last six or so years of his life.

The other great tragedy of Strachey's life was the misdiagnosis of his final illness, a stomach cancer that grew until it ultimately perforated his colon and killed him in 1932. According to his letters, he began to have signs of this illness starting in 1929, but his various physicians always attributed his vague symptoms to a series of minor ailments, usually prescribing such things as suppositories and doing nothing more to properly diagnose and treat the problem. Strachey did suffer bouts of illness throughout his life, and perhaps the fact that he had never suffered from anything serious before caused his physicians to not take him seriously when he did finally become gravely ill.

Strachey is at his best in his correspondence when he is pouring out his heart about something for which he cares deeply. For example, he writes some very elegant prose on his attitudes toward the first World War, why he was against it, and why he was willing to go to jail rather than serve its cause. I only wish that more of his correspondence had been about current events in England during his lifetime. His approach to the whole matter of refusing to serve in the war effort was a risky one, since he refused to be dishonest and just say that he was against all wars - he wasn't. He was simply adamantly opposed to this one particular war. On top of that, he was asking for a medical exemption based on his poor health that would find him completely unfit for service, even a desk job on the home front.Miraculously, he pulls this off and is found totally medically unfit, although the exact diagnosis of the military doctors is not given in his correspondence. This leads to one of the great conundrums of Strachey's life - how could someone who claimed to be so ill and who also convinced the military of this manage to travel throughout Europe as he often did and even embark on strenuous walking tours such as the one he took with Dora Carrington in Wales the same year he was exempted from military service?

Strachey has an intriguing and very often mischievous writing style whether he is gossiping about the personal lives of the other members of Bloomsbury, talking about his own work and his feelings toward its quality, or giving his opinion about the artistic works of the other members of Bloomsbury. If you are the least bit interested in the Bloomsbury group of artists, about Lytton Strachey himself, or the times in which Strachey lived, I highly recommend this collection of letters.

More Insight into the World of Bloomsbury
This is quite an interesting collection of Strachey's letters, covering the entire period of his life (1880-1932), but most were written after 1900.Today, Strachey is most familiar as a result of Holroyd's fine biography and the film "Carrington." But as I have mentioned in other Amazon reviews, reading a subject's letters to me is the best way to really understand the person, whether it be Henry Adams, Hannah Arendt, or Justice Holmes. The collection is replete with letters to such Bloomsbury personages as Virginia Woolf, Keynes, Ottoline Morrell, James Strachey, Duncan Grant, E.M. Forster, Vanessa Bell, Desmond MacCarthy, Clive Bell, and of course Dora Carrington. Along the way we learn much about the Cambridge Apostles, Strachey's working patterns, and his sexual proclivities. The editor (author of the fine biography of G.E. Moore and co-executor of Strachey's literary estate) has a definitive command of the personalities involved, the larger context of England during this first third of the 20th century, and the intellectual world in which Strachey functioned. His notes crisply identify ambiguous references in the letters and add a lot to the enjoyment of the volume.A very useful addition to the literature on Bloomsbury. ... Read more