Leonard Woolf: Life Before Bloomsbury
"To proclaim him pretty would be an insult to that finely carved pale face."
Leonard Woolf was a significant figure in twentieth-century Britain: a writer, publisher, political theorist, founder of the League of Nations and advisor to the Labour Party and the Fabian Society. He was also a founding member of the legendary Bloomsbury Group, a circle of artists, writers, free-thinkers and friends.
Despite a varied and successful career, though, Leonard has been overshadowed by the success and enduring interest in the creative and personal life of his wife, the modernist writer Virginia Woolf. In this biography, I will bring Leonard out of the shadows and look at his early life - before Bloomsbury and Virginia.
What a life he has led, and how well he has led it.1
E.M. Forster