cultural history – voices from the past
The Bloomsbury Group audio book is a collection of archive recordings taken from long-unheard BBC broadcasts and recordings from the Charleston Trust, many of them published here for the first time. They come in a two-CD boxed set, accompanied by a sixteen page explanatory booklet. Contributors to the Virginia Woolf Internet discussion group often comment on how astonishing it is to hear these voices from the past – and how remarkable their accents seem to us now. This is living proof that speech patterns and accents change over time.
Remember that Woolf began writing over a hundred years ago, and her father married Thackeray’s daughter – so these recordings carry with them direct links back as far as the Victorian era. For Bloomsbury Group aficionados and lovers of period nostalgia, this is a rare treat. Secondary Bloomsbury figures throw interesting light on life at that time via their first-hand accounts and memories of each other.
- Virginia Woolf reading an extract from a radio talk on the importance of language
- Leonard Woolf proffering a Who’s Who of the Bloomsbury Group
- Desmond McCarthy meditating on ‘tears’ in literature
- Duncan Grant discussing the infamous Dreadnought Hoax
- Clive Bell remembering Lytton Strachey asking, ‘Who would you most like to see coming up the drive?’
- Frances Partridge speaking about the Group’s larger influence
- William Plomer discussing the Group’s exclusivity
- David Garnett candidly describing the relationship between Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington
- David Cecil detailing Virginia Woolf’s day-to-day appearance
- Angelica Garnett opining on various attitudes towards members of the Group
- Harold Nicholson reciting a talk on the members and attitudes that dominated the Group
- Vita Sackville-West talking about the inspiration behind Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
- Quentin Bell exactingly describing the fashions of Virginia Woolf
- Benedict Nicholson remembering Virginia Woolf’s visits to Sissinghurst
- Margery Fry holding court on Virginia Woolf’s flights of fancy
- Elizabeth Bowen recalling Bloomsbury parties and Virginia Woolf’s antics
- Ralph Partridge reminiscing on time spent with Leonard and Virginia Woolf
- John Lehmann describing his reactions to Woolf’s final novel, Between the Acts
- Bertrand Russell on Lytton Strachey and his family
- Gerald Brenan recalling times spent with Lytton Strachey, Ralph Partridge, and Dora Carrington
- Grace Higgins describing daily life at Charleston, the Bloomsbury outpost in Sussex
© Roy Johnson 2010
The Bloomsbury Group (Spoken Word), British Library; 2 CD audio set with 16 page booklet, edition (November 15, 2009), Language: English, ISBN: 0712305939
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