English writer (1880?1932)
Lytton Strachey
|
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![A study of Strachey's face and hands by Carrington](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/Carrington_-_Strachey.jpg/220px-Carrington_-_Strachey.jpg) A study of Strachey's face and hands by
Carrington
|
Born
| Giles Lytton Strachey
(
1880-03-01
)
1 March 1880
London, England
|
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Died
| 21 January 1932
(1932-01-21)
(aged 51)
Ham, Wiltshire
, England
|
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Occupation
| Author, critic
|
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Alma mater
| |
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Parents
| Sir
Richard Strachey
Jane Grant
|
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Giles Lytton Strachey
(
;
[1]
1 March 1880 ? 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the
Bloomsbury Group
and author of
Eminent Victorians
, he established a new form of biography in which
psychological
insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit. His biography
Queen Victoria
(1921) was awarded the
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
.
Early life and education
[
edit
]
Youth
[
edit
]
Strachey was born on 1 March 1880 at Stowey House,
Clapham Common
, London, the fifth son and 11th child of Lieutenant General Sir
Richard Strachey
, an officer in the British colonial armed forces, and his second wife, the former
Jane Grant
, who became a leading supporter of the
women's suffrage
movement. He was named Giles Lytton after an early 16th-century Gyles Strachey and the
first Earl of Lytton
, who had been a friend of Richard Strachey's when he was
Viceroy of India
in the late 1870s. The Earl of Lytton was also Lytton Strachey's godfather.
[2]
The Stracheys had 13 children in total, 10 of whom survived to adulthood, including Lytton's sister
Dorothy Strachey
and youngest brother, the psychoanalyst,
James Strachey
.
When Lytton was four years old the family moved from Stowey House to 69
Lancaster Gate
, north of
Kensington Gardens
.
[3]
This was their home until Sir Richard retired 20 years later.
[4]
Lady Strachey was an enthusiast for languages and literature, making her children perform their own plays and write verse from early ages. She thought that Lytton had the potential to become a great artist so she decided that he would receive the best education possible in order to be "enlightened."
[5]
By 1887 he had begun the study of French, and he was to admire French culture throughout his life.
[2]
Strachey was educated at a series of schools, beginning at
Parkstone
, Dorset. This was a small school with a wide range of after-class activities, where Strachey's acting skills exceeded those of other pupils; he was particularly convincing when portraying female parts. He told his mother how much he liked dressing as a woman in real life to confuse and entertain others.
[6]
Lady Strachey decided in 1893 that her son should start his more serious education and sent him to
Abbotsholme School
in
Rocester
, Derbyshire, where pupils were required to do manual work every day. Strachey, who always had a fragile physique, objected to this requirement and after few months he was transferred to
Leamington College
, where he became a victim of savage bullying.
[2]
[7]
Sir Richard, however, told his son to "grin and bear the petty bullying."
[8]
Strachey did eventually adapt to the school and became one of its best pupils. In the 1960s one of the four 'houses' at the school was named after him. His health also seems to have improved during the three years he spent at Leamington, although various illnesses continued to plague him.
[9]
Sons and daughters of Sir
Richard Strachey
and Lady Strachey. Left to right: Marjorie,
Dorothea
, Lytton, Joan Pernel,
Oliver
, Dick, Ralph,
Philippa
, Elinor,
James
When Strachey turned 17 in 1897, Lady Strachey decided that he was ready to leave school and go to university, but because she thought he was too young for
Oxford
she decided that he should first attend a smaller institution, the
University of Liverpool
. There Strachey befriended the professor of modern literature,
Walter Raleigh
, who, besides being his favourite teacher, also became the most influential figure in his life before he went up to
Cambridge
. In 1899 Strachey took the
Christ Church
scholarship examination, wanting to get into
Balliol College, Oxford
, but the examiners determined that Strachey's academic achievements were not remarkable and were struck by his "shyness and nervousness."
[10]
They recommended
Lincoln College
as a more suitable institution, advice that Lady Strachey took as an insult, deciding then that he would attend
Trinity College, Cambridge
, instead.
[11]
Cambridge
[
edit
]
Strachey was admitted as a Pensioner at
Trinity College, Cambridge
, on 30 September 1899.
[12]
He became an Exhibitioner in 1900 and a Scholar in 1902. He won the Chancellor's Medal for English Verse in 1902
[13]
and was given a BA degree after he had won a second class in the History Tripos in June 1903. He did not however take leave of Trinity, but remained until October 1905 to work on a thesis that he hoped would gain him a fellowship.
[2]
Strachey was often ill and had to leave Cambridge repeatedly to recover from the
palpitations
that affected him.
[14]
Strachey's years at Cambridge were happy and productive. Among the
freshers
at Trinity there were three with whom Strachey soon became closely associated:
Clive Bell
,
Leonard Woolf
and
Saxon Sydney-Turner
. With another undergraduate, A. J. Robertson, these students formed a group called the Midnight Society, which, in the opinion of Bell, was the source of the
Bloomsbury Group
.
[15]
Other 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
to which
Tennyson
,
Hallam
,
Maurice
, and
Sterling
had once belonged. The Apostles formulated an elitist doctrine of "Higher Sodomy" which differentiated the homosexual acts of the intelligent from those of "ordinary" men.
[16]
: 20?23
In these years Strachey was highly prolific in writing verse, much of which has been preserved and some of which was published at the time. Strachey also became acquainted with other men who greatly influenced him, including
G. Lowes Dickinson
,
John Maynard Keynes
, Walter Lamb (brother of the painter
Henry Lamb
),
George Mallory
,
Bertrand Russell
[17]
and
G. E. Moore
. Moore's philosophy, with its assumption that the
summum bonum
lies in achieving a high quality of humanity, in experiencing delectable states of mind and in intensifying experience by contemplating great works of art, was a particularly important influence.
[2]
In the summer of 1903 Strachey applied for a position in the education department of the Civil Service. Even though the letters of recommendation written for him by those under whom he had studied showed that he was held in high esteem at Cambridge, he failed to get the appointment and decided to try for a fellowship at Trinity College.
[2]
From 1903 through 1905 he wrote a 400-page dissertation on
Warren Hastings
, the 18th-century Indian imperialist, but the work failed to secure Strachey the fellowship and led to his return to London.
[2]
Career
[
edit
]
Beginnings
[
edit
]
A painting by
Dora Carrington
of the "Mill House",
Tidmarsh
,
Pangbourne
, on the upper
Thames
, where much of
Queen Victoria
was written
After Strachey left Cambridge in 1905, his mother assigned him a
bed-sitting
room at 69 Lancaster Gate. After the family moved to 67 Belsize Gardens in
Hampstead
, and later to another house in the same street, he was assigned other bed-sitters.
[2]
But, as he was about to turn 30, family life started irritating him, and he took to travelling into the country more often, supporting himself by writing reviews and critical articles for
The Spectator
and other periodicals. In 1909 he spent some weeks at a health spa in
Saltsjobaden
, near
Stockholm
in Sweden. In this period he also lived for a while in a cottage on
Dartmoor
and about 1911?12 spent a whole winter at
East Ilsley
on the
Berkshire Downs
. During this time he decided to grow a beard, which became his most characteristic feature.
[2]
On 9 May 1911 he wrote to his mother:
The chief news is that I have grown a beard! Its colour is very much admired, and it is generally considered extremely effective, though some ill-bred persons have been observed to laugh. It is a red-brown of the most approved tint, and makes me look like a French decadent poet?or something equally distinguished.
[18]
Strachey photographed by
Lady Ottoline Morrell
in 1911 or 1912
In 1911
H. A. L. Fisher
, a former President of the
British Academy
and of the Board of Education, was in search of someone to write a short one-volume survey of French literature. Fisher had read one of Strachey's reviews ("Two Frenchmen,"
Independent Review
(1903)) and asked him to write an outline in 50,000 words, giving him
J. W. Mackail
's
Latin Literature
(1909) as a model.
[2]
Landmarks in French Literature
, dedicated to "J[ane] M[aria] S[trachey]," his mother, was published on 12 January 1912. Despite almost a full column of praise in
The Times Literary Supplement
of 1 February and sales that by April 1914 had reached nearly 12,000 copies in the
British Empire
and America, the book brought Strachey neither the fame he craved nor the money he badly needed.
[2]
Eminent Victorians
and later career
[
edit
]
Soon after the publication of
Landmarks
, Strachey's mother and his friend Harry Norton
[19]
supported him financially. Each provided him with £100, which, together with his earnings from the
Edinburgh Review
and other periodicals, made it possible for him to rent a small thatched cottage, The Lacket, outside the village of
Lockeridge
, near
Marlborough, Wiltshire
. He lived there until 1916 and it was there that he wrote the first three parts of
Eminent Victorians
.
[2]
Strachey's theory of biography was now fully developed and mature. He was greatly influenced by
Dostoyevsky
, whose novels he had been reading and reviewing as they appeared in
Constance Garnett
's translations. The influence of
Freud
was important on Strachey's later works, most notably on
Elizabeth and Essex
, but not at this earlier stage.
[2]
In 1916 Lytton Strachey was back in London, living with his mother at 6
Belsize Park Gardens
,
Hampstead
, where she had now moved. In the late autumn of 1917, however, his brother Oliver and his friends Harry Norton, John Maynard Keynes and Saxon Sydney-Turner agreed to pay the rent on the Mill House at
Tidmarsh
, near
Pangbourne
, Berkshire.
From 1904 to 1914 Strachey contributed book and theatre reviews to
The Spectator
. Under the pseudonym "Ignotus", he also published a number of drama reviews.
During the First World War, Strachey applied for recognition as a
conscientious objector
, but in the event he was granted exemption from military service on health grounds. He spent much of the war with like-minded people such as
Lady Ottoline Morrell
and the
Bloomsburys
.
Dora Carrington, Ralph Partridge, Lytton and Oliver Strachey, and Frances Partridge; snapshot by Ottoline Morrell, 1923
His first great success, and his most famous achievement, was
Eminent Victorians
(1918), a collection of four short biographies of Victorian heroes. Unlike any biography of its time,
Eminent Victorians
examines the career and psychology of historical figures by using literary devices such as paradox, antithesis, hyperbole, and irony. This work was followed by another in the same style,
Queen Victoria
(1921).
[20]
Dora Carrington; Stephen Tomlin; Walter John Herbert ('Sebastian') Sprott; Lytton Strachey, June 1926
From then on, Strachey needed no further financial aid. He continued to live at Tidmarsh until 1924, when he moved to
Ham Spray House
near
Marlborough, Wiltshire
. This was his home for the rest of his life.
[2]
Death
[
edit
]
Strachey died of stomach cancer on 21 January 1932, aged 51. It is reported that his final words were: "If this is dying, then I don't think much of it."
[21]
Personal life and sexuality
[
edit
]
Strachey spoke openly about his homosexuality with his Bloomsbury friends, and had relationships with a variety of men including
Ralph Partridge
.
Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey at Ham Spray
The painter
Dora Carrington
and Strachey had a lifelong, open, loving but platonic relationship. They eventually established a permanent home together at Ham Spray House, where Carrington would paint and Strachey would educate her in literature.
[22]
In 1921, Carrington agreed to marry Partridge, not for love but to secure a three-way relationship. Partridge eventually formed a relationship with Frances Marshall, another Bloomsbury member.
[23]
Shortly after Strachey died, Carrington took her own life. Partridge married Marshall in 1933. Strachey was mainly interested sexually in Partridge, as well as in various other young men,
[24]
including a secret
sadomasochistic
relationship with
Roger Senhouse
, later the head of the publishing house
Secker & Warburg
.
[25]
Strachey's letters, edited by Paul Levy, were published in 2005.
[26]
In popular culture
[
edit
]
Virginia Woolf
's husband
Leonard Woolf
said that in her experimental novel
The Waves
, "there is something of Lytton in Neville." Lytton is also said to have been the inspiration behind the character of St John Hirst in her novel
The Voyage Out
.
Michael Holroyd
describes Strachey as the inspiration behind Cedric Furber in
Wyndham Lewis
's
The Self-Condemned
. In Lewis's novel
The Apes of God
he is seen in the character of Matthew Plunkett, whom Holroyd describes as "a maliciously distorted and hilarious caricature of Lytton."
[27]
In the Terminus Note in
E. M. Forster
's
Maurice
, Forster remarks that the Cambridge undergraduate Risley in the novel is based on Strachey.
Jonathan Pryce
as Strachey,
Steven Waddington
as Ralph Partridge and
Emma Thompson
as
Dora Carrington
in the film
Carrington
Strachey was portrayed by
Jonathan Pryce
in the film
Carrington
(1995),
[28]
which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival that year, while Pryce won Best Actor for his performance. In the film
Al sur de Granada
(2003), Strachey was portrayed by
James Fleet
.
Strachey was portrayed by Ed Birch in the 2015 mini-series
Life in Squares
.
[29]
Strachey was portrayed by
Simon Russell Beale
in the 2020
BBC Radio 3
play
Elizabeth and Essex
by
Robin Brooks
.
[30]
Works
[
edit
]
Blue plaque, 51 Gordon Square
Academic works and biographies
[
edit
]
Posthumous publications
[
edit
]
- Characters and Commentaries
, ed. James Strachey (1933)
- Spectatorial Essays
, ed. James Strachey (1964)
- Ermyntrude and Esmeralda. An Entertainment
, illus.
Erte
(1969)
- Lytton Strachey by Himself: A Self-Portrait
, ed. Michael Holroyd (1971) (
ISBN
978-0-349-11812-3
)
- The Really Interesting Question, and Other Papers
, ed.
Paul Levy
(1972)
- The Shorter Strachey
, ed. Michael Holroyd and Paul Levy (1980)
- The Letters of Lytton Strachey
, ed. Paul Levy (2005) (
ISBN
0-670-89112-6
)
- Unpublished Works of Lytton Strachey: Early Papers
, ed. Todd Avery (2011)
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Lytton Strachey
,
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
. Accessed 23 August 2013.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
Charles Richard Sanders,
Lytton Strachey: His Mind and Art
, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957.
- ^
Since May 1959 the Stracheys' former home has been part of Douglas House, the large American Forces Club that now occupies Nos. 66?71 Lancaster Gate.
- ^
Michael Holroyd
,
Lytton Strachey: A Biography
, Penguin, 1971. (
ISBN
0-374-52465-3
).
- ^
Mary Stocks,
My Commonplace Book
. Peter Stocks, 1970.
- ^
Holroyd, pp. 72?73.
- ^
Holroyd, 93.
- ^
Holroyd, 94.
- ^
Holroyd, 96.
- ^
Holroyd, 129.
- ^
Holroyd, 130.
- ^
"Strachey, Giles Lytton (STRY899GL)"
.
A Cambridge Alumni Database
. University of Cambridge.
- ^
"University intelligence".
The Times
. No. 36711. London. 10 March 1902. p. 11.
- ^
Holroyd, 147?153.
- ^
Holroyd, 136?137.
- ^
Taddeo, Julie Anne (18 July 2002).
Lytton Strachey and the search for modern sexual identity
. Routledge; 1 edition.
ISBN
978-1-56023-359-6
.
- ^
In his
Autobiography
, Russell was quite amused by
Eminent Victorians
, but did not like Strachey's cynicism about life. Russell writes at page 73 (George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1971): "Perhaps it was this attitude [about life] which made him not a great man".
- ^
The Letters of Lytton Strachey
, ed. Paul Levy, 2005 (
ISBN
0-670-89112-6
)
- ^
Henry Tertius James Norton, the "H.T.J.N.", to whom
Eminent Victorians
is dedicated,
- ^
"Lytton Strachey | British biographer"
.
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Retrieved
15 January
2018
.
- ^
Rutledge, L. W. (1989).
The Gay Fireside Companion
.
Alyson Publications
. p.
181
.
ISBN
9781555831646
.
- ^
Holroyd, 447.
- ^
Holroyd, 485.
- ^
Frances Partridge, Bloomsbury groupie
? Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved on 23 December 2007.
- ^
"Bloomsbury's final secret"
.
The Daily Telegraph
. London. 14 March 2005
. Retrieved
29 December
2016
.
- ^
Levy, Paul (14 March 2005).
"Bloomsbury's final secret"
.
The Daily Telegraph
. London.
ISSN
0307-1235
. Retrieved
15 January
2018
.
- ^
Rintoul, M. C. (1993).
Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction
. London: Routledge.
ISBN
0-415-05999-2
.
- ^
Tunzelmann, Alex von (2 September 2010).
"Carrington: what a carry-on | Reel history"
.
The Guardian
. London
. Retrieved
15 January
2018
.
- ^
"Life in Squares"
. IMDb. 27 July 2015
. Retrieved
1 March
2021
.
- ^
"BBC Radio 3 ? Drama on 3, Elizabeth and Essex"
.
- ^
Strachey, Lytton (19 June 2012).
Elizabeth & Essex
. I.B.Tauris.
ISBN
9781780760490
. Retrieved
1 March
2021
.
Sources
[
edit
]
- Bell, Millicent. "Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians" in Meyers, Jeffrey (ed.)
The Biographer's Art
, London: Macmillan, 1989, 53?55.
- Diment, G. "Nabokov and Strachey".
Comparative Literature Studies
27.4 (1990): 285?97.
- Ferns, John.
Lytton Strachey,
Boston: Twayne, 1988.
- Fromm, Harold. "Holroyd/Strachey/Shaw: Art and Archives in Literary Biography",
The Hudson Review
, 42.2 (1989): 201?221.
- Hattersley, Roy. "Lytton Strachey's Elegant, Energetic Character Assassinations Destroyed For Ever the Pretensions of the Victorian Age to Moral Supremacy",
New Statesman
(12 August 2002)
- Holroyd, Michael
.
Lytton Strachey
,
1994,
ISBN
0-09-933291-4
(paperback)
- Kallich, Martin.
The Psychological Milieu of Lytton Strachey,
NY: Bookman Associates, 1961.
- MacCarthy, Desmond.
Lytton Strachey: The Art of Biography,
"Sunday Times" 5 November 1933: 8.
- Sanders, Charles Richard.
Lytton Strachey: his mind and art,
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957.
- Taddeo, Julie Anne Taddeo.
Lytton Strachey and the Search for Modern Sexual Identity
, Binghamton: Harrington Park Press, 2002.
External links
[
edit
]
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