412Z Summer 2026 “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and The Bloomsbury Group

Before and after the Great War, a group of writers and artists gathered in salons in the Bloomsbury area of London. They talked about their projects, they debated the issues of the day, and they gossiped about their friends. We will look at the lives of the two women in the center of the group, Virginia Woolf and her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell, as well as the creative men they socialized with—Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, T. S. Eliot and others. In session one we will talk about their Victorian upbringing and how they came together as a group, up until World War I. In session two we will follow their progress in their careers, including the success of Virginia's major novels, and their personal lives against the backdrop of the fascinating decade, the 1920s. A suggested reading and viewing list will be supplied, but no preparation is required.

Kathleen Dixon Donnelly's dissertation “Such Friends” was on early 20th century salons. Her books include Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group in the Literary 1920s and “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s. Kathleen blogs about what was happening 100 years ago at www.suchfriends.wordpress.com.