For more than half a century people have been talking about the Bloomsbury group. The word Bloomsbury has been used with feeling, but often with no more than a vague idea of what the group stood for. Of its importance there can be no doubt, for on any reckoning it includes amongst its members Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Clive and Vanessa Bell, Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, Roger Fry and Duncan Grant.

No one is better equipped for the task of definition than Quentin Bell, who knows Bloomsbury from the inside but is nevertheless able to consider it in a critical spirit. Rejecting the idea that Bloomsbury ever represented one consistent body of thought, he presents us with a clear and accurate account of its development, its impact and its true nature. This is a study which is of the utmost importance to our understanding of the art, the literature and the thought of this century.

The illustrations are of particular interest since they include previously unpublished personal snapshots and many examples of Bloomsbury's contribution to the fine arts.