Edwardian Bloomsbury: v. 2 The Early Literary History of the Bloomsbury Group

This study is a continuation of the early literary history of the Bloomsbury Group begun with "Victorian Bloomsbury", but it can also be read independently as an account of the Group's interrelated writings during the first decade of the 20th century. The book is based on extensive archival research, and includes unknown and recently discovered essays by Virginia Woolf. The first half of the book traces the beginnning s of the Bloomsbury writers through Lytton Strachey's first essays; E.M. Forster's first essays, stories and novel; Desmond MacCarthy's influential dramatic criticism of Shaw; and Virginia Woolf's early reviews, esssays and fiction. Also described are the Group's early forgotten efforts in poetry, Strachey's Cambridge writings and Bloomsbury's pre-post-impressionist aesthetics. The second half of the book examines Forster's career as an Edwardian novelist, which culminated in "Howard's End"; Strachey's widely-read "Spectator" reviews; Virginaia Woolf's development as a biographical essayist; and Leonard Woolf's varied Ceylon writings, which include his novel "The Village in the Jungle". S.P. Rosenbaum is the author of "Victorian Bloomsbury: The Early Literary History of the Bloomsbury Group, Volume 1", and editor of "A Bloomsbury Group Reader", "Virginia Woolf's Women & Fiction: The Manuscript Versions of 'A Room of One's Own'" and "The Bloomsbury Group: A Collection of Memoirs, Commentary and Criticism".

Table of Contents:
Explanation of References and Abbreviations - Preface - PART 1: EARLIER EDWARDIAN - Introduction - Independent Reviewers - E.M. Forster's Earlier Short Writings - The First Book of Bloomsbury - E.M. Forster's First Novel - Desmond MacCarthy at the Court Theatre - Lytton Strachey and the Prose of Empire - Virginia Woolf: Beginnings - Roger Fry and the Early Aesthetics of Bloomsbury - PART 2: LATER EDWARDIAN - Introduction - E.M. Forster's Refutation of Idealism - Desmond MacCarthy and the New Quarterly, Clive Bell and the Athenaeum - Lytton Strachey and the Spectator - E.M. Forster: Rooms and Views - Virginia Woolf and the Proper Writing of Lives - Leonard Woolf's Ceylon Writings - E.M. Forster: Ends and Means - Notes - Bibliography - Index

Review :
'This is the second volume of a formidable enterprise, and part of a series of publications by the same author that may entitle him to the position as the leading scholar of the Bloomsbury Group...Rosenbaum has managed to write with freshness and insight about Forster's novels, no matter how much they have been analyzed before...The next volume will deal with the effect of that exhibition upon the Group's writing and much more, I am sure, of its early literary history. The work is eagerly awaited.' - Peter Stanksy, English Literature in Transition 1880-1920