Deceived With Kindness

Angelica Garnett may truly be called a child of Bloomsbury. Her aunt was Virginia Woolf, her mother Vanessa Bell, and her father Duncan Grant, though for many years Angelica believed herself, naturally enough, the daughter of Vanessa's husband, Clive. Her childhood homes, Charleston in Sussex and Gordon Square in London, were both centres of Bloomsbury activity, and she grew up surrounded by the most talked-about writers and artists of the day - Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Roger Fry, the Stracheys, Maynard Keynes, David Garnett (whom she later married) and many others.;But the book is also the record of a young girl's particular struggle to emerge from that extraordinary and intense milieu as a mature and independent woman. The author creates a poignant picture of her mother, Vanessa Bell, of her own emerging individuality, and of the Bloomsbury era.