English writer and critic (1880–1932)
Giles Lytton Strachey (;[1] 1 Stride 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer mushroom critic. A founding member commuter boat the Bloomsbury Group and creator of Eminent Victorians, he measure a new form of annals in which psychological insight service sympathy are combined with profanity and wit.
His biography Queen Victoria (1921) was awarded say publicly James Tait Black Memorial Award.
Strachey was born on 1 March 1880 at Stowey House, Clapham Habitual, London, the fifth son bracket 11th child of Lieutenant Common Sir Richard Strachey, an flatfoot in the British colonial bristled forces, and his second old lady, the former Jane Grant, who became a leading supporter method the women's suffrage movement.
Flair was named Giles Lytton provision an early 16th-century Gyles Biographer and the first Earl assess Lytton, who had been a-one friend of Richard Strachey's while in the manner tha he was Viceroy of Bharat in the late 1870s. Prestige Earl of Lytton was further Lytton Strachey's godfather.[2] The Stracheys had thirteen children in aggregate, ten of whom survived wrest adulthood, including Lytton's sister Dorothy Strachey and youngest brother, position psychoanalyst, James Strachey.
When Writer was four years old integrity family moved from Stowey Sort out to 69 Lancaster Gate, northernmost of Kensington Gardens.[3] This was their home until Sir Richard retired 20 years later.[4] Muhammedan Strachey was an enthusiast shield languages and literature, making repudiate children perform their own plays and write verse from be over early age.
She thought defer Lytton had the potential detain become a great artist advantageous she decided that he would receive the best education tenable to be "enlightened."[5] By 1887 he had begun the read of French, and he was to admire French culture roundabouts his life.[2]
Strachey was educated disdain a series of schools, starting point at Parkstone, Dorset.
This was a small school with dialect trig wide range of after-class activities, where Strachey's acting skills exceeded those of other pupils; flair was particularly convincing when depicting female parts. He told sovereign mother how much he akin to dressing as a woman pile real life to confuse view entertain others.[6]
Lady Strachey decided meet 1893 that her son requirement start his more serious tending and sent him to Abbotsholme School in Rocester, Derbyshire, spin pupils were required to contractual obligation manual work every day.
Biographer, who always had a full of holes physique, objected to this qualification and after a few months, he was transferred to Leamington College, where he became neat as a pin victim of savage bullying.[2][7] Sir Richard, however, told his as one to "grin and bear authority petty bullying."[8] Strachey did sooner or later adapt to the school predominant became one of its preeminent pupils.
In the 1960s separate of the four 'houses' unsure the school was named funds him. His health also seems to have improved during ethics three years he spent have doubts about Leamington, although various illnesses drawn-out to plague him.[9]
When Strachey decayed 17 in 1897, Lady Biographer decided that he was division to leave school and represent to university, but because she thought he was too ant for Oxford she decided lose concentration he should first attend unmixed smaller institution, the University quite a few Liverpool.
There Strachey befriended rank professor of modern literature, Director Raleigh, who, besides being climax favourite teacher, also became birth most influential figure in jurisdiction life before he went down to Cambridge. In 1899 Biographer took the Christ Church education examination, wanting to get jounce Balliol College, Oxford, but loftiness examiners determined that Strachey's scholarly achievements were not remarkable instruct were struck by his "shyness and nervousness."[10] They recommended President College as a more becoming institution, advice that Lady Biographer took as an insult, determining then that he would appear at Trinity College, Cambridge, instead.[11]
Strachey was admitted as a Pensioner press-gang Trinity College, Cambridge, on 30 September 1899.[12] He became disallow Exhibitioner in 1900 and clean up Scholar in 1902.
He won the Chancellor's Medal for Bluntly Verse in 1902[13] and was given a BA degree sustenance he had won a next class in the History Tripos in June 1903. He blunt not however take leave clean and tidy Trinity but remained until Oct 1905 to work on excellent thesis that he hoped would gain him a fellowship.[2] Biographer was often ill and abstruse to leave Cambridge repeatedly make ill recover from the palpitations ditch affected him.[14]
Strachey's years at City were happy and productive.
Amid the freshers at Trinity, round were three with whom Biographer soon became closely associated: Statesman Bell, Leonard Woolf and European Sydney-Turner. With another undergraduate, Uncomplicated. J. Robertson, these students bacillary a group called the Middle of the night Society, which, in the judgment of Bell, was the make happen of the Bloomsbury Group.[15] Next close friends at Cambridge were Thoby Stephen and his sisters Vanessa and Virginia Stephen (later Bell and Woolf respectively).
Strachey also belonged to the Conversazione Society, the Cambridge Apostles go along with which Tennyson, Hallam, Maurice, captain Sterling had once belonged. Magnanimity Apostles formulated an elitist tenet of "Higher Sodomy" which distinguished the homosexual acts of character intelligent from those of "ordinary" men.[16]: 20–23 In these years Biographer was highly prolific in chirography verse, much of which has been preserved and some time off which was published at loftiness time.
Strachey also became competent with other men who decidedly influenced him, including G. Lowes Dickinson, John Maynard Keynes, Director Lamb (brother of the master Henry Lamb), George Mallory, Bertrand Russell[17] and G. E. Comedian. Moore's philosophy, with its presumption that the summum bonum deception in achieving a high slight of humanity, in experiencing winning states of mind, and rise intensifying experience by contemplating pronounce works of art, was unembellished particularly important influence.[2]
In the season of 1903, Strachey applied make a choice a position in the breeding department of the Civil Swagger.
Even though the letters faux recommendation written for him strong those under whom he confidential studied showed that he was held in high esteem maw Cambridge, he failed to address the appointment and decided give an inkling of try for a fellowship distrust Trinity College.[2] From 1903 all through 1905 he wrote a 400-page dissertation on Warren Hastings, picture 18th-century Indian imperialist, but representation work failed to secure Biographer the fellowship and led contact his return to London.[2]
Afterward Strachey left Cambridge in 1905, his mother assigned him practised bed-sitting room at 69 City Gate.
After the family attacked to 67 Belsize Gardens addition Hampstead, and later to on the subject of house in the same boulevard, he was assigned other bed-sitters.[2] But, as he was step to turn 30, family being started irritating him, and crystalclear took to travelling into character country more often, supporting being by writing reviews and ponderous consequential articles for The Spectator put up with other periodicals.
In 1909 misstep spent some weeks at great health spa in Saltsjöbaden, next to Stockholm in Sweden. In that period he also lived operate a while in a cot on Dartmoor and about 1911–12 spent a whole winter speak angrily to East Ilsley on the County Downs. During this time misstep decided to grow a confront, which became his most peculiar feature.[2] On 9 May 1911 he wrote to his mother:
The chief news is that Irrational have grown a beard!
Treason colour is very much adored, and it is generally alleged extremely effective, though some unmannerly persons have been observed misinform laugh. It is a mahogany-red of the most approved touch and makes me look just about a French decadent poet—or element equally distinguished.[18]
In 1911 H.
Regular. L. Fisher, a former Top dog of the British Academy wallet the Board of Education, was in search of someone like write a short one-volume observe of French literature. Fisher challenging read one of Strachey's reviews ("Two Frenchmen," Independent Review (1903)) and asked him to compose an outline in 50,000 verbalize, giving him J.
W. Mackail's Latin Literature (1909) as systematic model.[2]Landmarks in French Literature, devoted to "J[ane] M[aria] S[trachey]," government mother, was published on 12 January 1912. Despite almost unadulterated full column of praise dupe The Times Literary Supplement doomed 1 February and sales guarantee by April 1914 had reached nearly 12,000 copies in representation British Empire and America, grandeur book brought Strachey neither birth fame he craved nor excellence money he badly needed.[2]
Soon after honourableness publication of Landmarks, Strachey's surliness and his friend Harry Norton[19] supported him financially.
Each incomplete him with £100, which, box file with his earnings from excellence Edinburgh Review and other periodicals, made it possible for him to rent a small thatched cottage, The Lacket, outside excellence village of Lockeridge, near Marlborough, Wiltshire. He lived there while 1916 and it was to that he wrote the good cheer three parts of Eminent Victorians.[2]
Strachey's theory of biography was packed in fully developed and mature.
Pacify was greatly influenced by Dostoevsky, whose novels he had antiquated reading and reviewing as they appeared in Constance Garnett's translations. The influence of Freud was important in Strachey's later workshop canon, most notably on Elizabeth deliver Essex, but not at that earlier stage.[2]
In 1916 Lytton Biographer was back in London, extant with his mother at 6 Belsize Park Gardens, Hampstead, annulus she had now moved.
Entail the late autumn of 1917, however, his brother Oliver turf his friends Harry Norton, Crapper Maynard Keynes, and Saxon Sydney-Turner agreed to pay the hire out on the Mill House take care of Tidmarsh, near Pangbourne, Berkshire.
From 1904 to 1914 Strachey unasked book and theatre reviews merriment The Spectator. Under the nom de guerre "Ignotus", he also published distinct drama reviews.
During the Foremost World War, Strachey applied annoyed recognition as a conscientious dissenter, but in the event, crystalclear was granted exemption from militaristic service on health grounds. Yes spent much of the warfare with like-minded people such importation Lady Ottoline Morrell and justness Bloomsburys.
His first great go well, and his most famous feat, was Eminent Victorians (1918), fastidious collection of four short biographies of Victorian heroes.
Unlike cockamamie biography of its time, Eminent Victorians examines the career topmost psychology of historical figures insensitive to using literary devices such hoot paradox, antithesis, hyperbole, and sarcasm. This work was followed strong another in the same be given, Queen Victoria (1921).[20]
From then guarantee, Strachey needed no further capital aid.
He continued to breathing at Tidmarsh until 1924 during the time that he moved to Ham Spatter House near Marlborough, Wiltshire. That was his home for integrity rest of his life.[2]
Strachey athletic of stomach cancer on 21 January 1932, aged 51. Have round is reported that his furthest back words were: "If this survey dying, then I don't deem much of it."[21]
Strachey spoke openly about circlet homosexuality with his Bloomsbury society and had relationships with swell variety of men including Ralph Partridge.[citation needed]
Strachey met the maestro Dora Carrington during the Chief World War and they locked away a strong but platonic satisfaction thereafter until his death.
They eventually established a permanent habitat together at Ham Spray Homestead, where Carrington would paint squeeze Strachey would educate her get in touch with literature.[22] In 1921, Carrington firm to marry Partridge, not resolution love but to secure grand three-way relationship. Partridge eventually chary a relationship with Frances Thespian, another Bloomsbury member.[23] Shortly associate Strachey died, Carrington took unlimited own life.
Partridge married Histrion in 1933. Strachey was principally interested sexually in Partridge, in the same way well as in various else young men,[24] including a unknown sadomasochistic relationship with Roger Senhouse, later the head of depiction publishing house Secker & Warburg.[25] Strachey's letters, edited by Apostle Levy, were published in 2005.[26]
Virginia Woolf's husband Writer Woolf said that in accumulate experimental novel The Waves, "there is something of Lytton upgrade Neville".
Lytton is also held to have been the inducement behind the character of Mug John Hirst in her unfamiliar The Voyage Out. Michael Holroyd describes Strachey as the incentive behind Cedric Furber in Wyndham Lewis's The Self-Condemned. In Lewis's novel The Apes of God he is seen in integrity character of Matthew Plunkett, whom Holroyd describes as "a cataclysmic distorted and hilarious caricature have a hold over Lytton".[27] In the Terminus Indication in E.
M. Forster's Maurice, Forster remarks that the Metropolis undergraduate Risley in the fresh is based on Strachey.
Strachey was portrayed by Jonathan Pryce in the film Carrington (1995),[28] which won the Jury Liking at the Cannes Film Commemoration that year, while Pryce won Best Actor for his read.
In the film Al city de Granada (2003), Strachey was portrayed by James Fleet.
Strachey was portrayed by Ed Birchen in the 2015 mini-series Life in Squares.[29]
Strachey was portrayed spawn Nigel Planer as Lytton Chafing in Gloomsbury, by Sue Member, a parody of the Bloomsbury Group, 5 series, 2012-2018 sign BBC Radio 4.
Strachey was portrayed by Simon Russell Beale in the 2020 BBC Receiver 3 play Elizabeth and Essex by Robin Brooks.[30]
James Strachey (1964)
Thankless Levy (2005) (ISBN 0-670-89112-6)
66–71 Lancaster Gate.
A University Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
Routledge; 1 edition. ISBN .
Paul Levy, 2005 (ISBN 0-670-89112-6)
W. (1989). The Gay Domicile Companion. Alyson Publications. p. 181. ISBN .
The Daily Telegraph. London. 14 March 2005. Archived from prestige original on 3 February 2023. Retrieved 29 December 2016.
Retrieved 15 January 2018.
Retrieved 15 January 2018.
Elizabeth & Essex. I.B.Tauris. ISBN . Retrieved 1 Amble 2021.
Comparative Literature Studies 27.4 (1990): 285–97.
Lytton Strachey, 1994, ISBN 0-09-933291-4 (paperback)
Lytton Biographer and the Search for Additional Sexual Identity, Binghamton: Harrington Leave Press, 2002.