Hatchard’s will celebrate the publication of Maggie Humm’s new book, The Bloomsbury Photographs (2024) with a special “lantern show” at 18:30 BST on Tuesday, Oct. 22, at its shop on Piccadilly.
About the event
At the event, Maggie Humm will offer a fresh portrait of the Bloomsbury Group by showing a curated selection of the thousands of photographs that shows them in a setting of domestic intimacy. Scenes include the pastimes, children, clothes, houses, servants, pets, and holidays of the group.
According to Hatchard’s: “Several photographs are blurred as if taken in a hurried moment of time, and unguarded close-ups reflect complex personal relationships – revealing them to be more than simply documents; they are testimonies of relationships, friendships, and the significance of empathetic lives.”
Humm is vice-chair of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain and author of many monographs about Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury, including her novel Talland House, which is based on Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.
There was nothing one could not say, nothing one could not do, at 46 Gordon Square – “Old Bloomsbury,” Virginia Woolf, 1921).
Founded this year in Antwerp, the Gordon Square Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and propagating the free thinking of the Bloomsbury Group and Virginia Woolf through lectures, exhibitions, concerts, performances, debates and more.
Founders include Isabel Miquel Arques, Yasmine Geukens, Marie-Paule De Vil, Ben Majchrowicz, and Eric Rinckhout.
Take a look at the group’s upcoming events, as well as membership opportunities. And for more information, visit https://www.gordonsquaresociety.net/.
Gordon Square Society Events
Sept. 28: A pre-festival ‘Fundraising Evening’ at a unique location in Antwerp with treats for body and mind, Bloomsbury cocktails and food, and music performances. Meet society members in person during its exclusive introductory evening in the beautiful setting of Casa Lozana. The society will provide treats for body and mind, with Bloomsbury cocktails and food, and a performance by internationally renowned mezzo-soprano Natascha Petrinsky. Petrinsky has performed opera roles at Europe’s greatest opera houses, such as La Monnaie in Brussels, La Fenice in Venice, La Scala in Milan and Covent Garden in London. Participation is €100. RSVP by email to info@gordonsquaresociety.net before 15 September.
Nov. 22, 23 and 24: The group’s first ‘Virginia Woolf & Bloomsbury Festival’ will take place, in several beautiful locations in Antwerp, with inspiring speakers, artistic performances and engaging debates.
46 Gordon Square, London, the early Victorian home that Virginia (Stephen) Woolf shared with her siblings, Vanessa, Thoby, and Adrian from 1905-1907.
Dec. 7: Post-festival, everyone is invited for a ‘High Tea Candlelight Reading with Virginia Woolf’, 7 December, with tea and cakes and readings from Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’.
Become a Member
Membership helps the group plan and hold events, where leading international speakers and performers are invited to speak and perform. There are three membership categories: Member, Young Member or Gordon Patron. Membership options begin at €20 per year, and each offers unique features.
You can find membership information at: www.gordonsquaresociety.net. Or send an email with the membership option of your choice to: info@gordonsquaresociety.net.
The Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain invites all members to a free members-only online event titled “Bloomsbury in Love,” in honor of Valentine’s Day as well as the love relationships of members of the Bloomsbury group.
Details
When: Wednesday, Feb, 21, 5:30 p.m. GMT Where: On Zoom. Members will be sent the Zoom link. What: An evening of readings by members about love and relationships from Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group. How: If you are not already a member of the society, join now to participate.
The 100th episode of BBC Sounds features Greg Jenner joined by Virginia Woolf scholar Dr. Jane Goldman and comedian Suzi Ruffell as the trio travels back a century to 1920s London to learn all about the members of the Bloomsbury Group.
The 61-minute episode, “The Bloomsbury Group,” explores the lives, loves and cultural impact of Bloomsbury Group members, including Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, and John Maynard Keynes. It was released today.
Shakespeare and Bloomsbury. They may not seem to go together, but they do. And theFolger Shakespeare Library has created a podcast in its “Shakespeare Unlimited” series that explains how.
In episode 221, Harvard Professor Marjorie Garber explains how modernist writers of London’s Bloomsbury group made Shakespeare their own. In this conversation with Barbara Bogaev, she discusses the threads of Shakespeare that run through Woolf’s novels, how Lytton Strachey changed our perspective on Shakespeare’s late plays, and what got her interested in the Bloomsbury Group in the first place, according to the website.
Garber is the author of Shakespeare in Bloomsbury (2023), in which she traces the influence of Shakespeare on the members of the group, which included Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, Vanessa Bell, Dadie Rylands, Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, and others.
What surprised me was how widespread it was . . . they are all writers and they’re interested in style, but no matter what they’re writing about, Shakespeare comes in. . . He is for them the pinnacle of a certain kind of intellectual achievement.
