An Inventory of His Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities
Research Center
Creator
Strachey, Lytton,
1880-1932
Title
Lytton Strachey Collection
Dates:
1885-1957
Extent:
5 boxes (2.08 linear feet)
Abstract
This collection documents
the life and works of the English Bloomsbury group writer. The collection
consists of manuscripts of Strachey's major biographical works
Portraits in Miniature (1931) and
Queen Victoria (1921), and drafts of
essays, notes, and correspondence.
Giles Lytton Strachey was born in 1880, the eleventh of thirteen
children, to General Sir Richard Strachey and his wife Jane Grant. Though he
spent some years at boarding schools, including Abbotsholme and Leamington
College, he received much of his education at home. His mother enjoyed strong
interests in literature and politics and Strachey met many of the leading
writers and thinkers of the day when they came to visit Lady Strachey.
Strachey's secondary education was completed at University College in Liverpool
where he studied Latin, Greek, mathematics, and English literature and history.
It was at University College that he met and was influenced by Walter Raleigh,
a professor of English literature and well known biographer.
After failing to receive a scholarship to Oxford in 1899, Strachey
decided to attend Cambridge where he developed many friendships which lasted
the rest of his life. At Cambridge he met Clive Bell, Thoby Stephen, and
Leonard Woolf, with whom he started the Midnight Society and the X Society.
Along with many other future "Bloomsberries" he was
elected to the Apostles. In 1903 fellow Apostle G.E. Moore's
Principia Ethica was published, producing a
profound effect on the aspiring intellectuals.
Principia became a rationalizing factor in
loosening the repression of homosexual tendencies among the Apostles and in
Trinity and King's College as well.
Strachey completed his work at Cambridge with a thesis on Warren
Hastings but failed to receive a Trinity fellowship. He returned to his
parents' home in Lancaster Gate and sought to support himself as a journalist.
Much of his social life centered on the Bloomsbury group which focused on the
Thursday night "at-homes" of the Stephenses (Thoby,
Adrian, Vanessa [Bell], and Virginia [Woolf]). Over the next several years
Strachey traveled, visited friends and wrote his first book,
Landmarks in French Literature (1912) which
was commissioned by H.A.L. Fisher. In 1910 Strachey made the acquaintance of
Ottoline Morrell with whom he carried on a playful and extended correspondence
over the years. Through Morrell he met Henry Lamb and Henry Norton, who loaned
him £100 to rent a cottage so he could begin his next major work,
Eminent Victorians (1918). In 1915 Strachey
met Dora Carrington, a graduate of the Slade School of Art and the woman who
would shortly devote herself to him for the rest of his life.
In 1917 Strachey and Carrington moved into a cottage in Tidemarsh,
Oxfordshire, and continued to carry on with their personal lives. Carrington
maintained a relationship with fellow artist Mark Gertler before marrying Ralph
Partridge in 1921, and Strachey moved through a series of relationships as
well. Strachey's time at Tidemarsh cottage was also spent productively writing.
He followed
Eminent Victorians with
Queen Victoria (1921) and produced a
collection of essays,
Books and Characters as well. His style was
becoming very popular and he began to achieve a measure of fame which allowed
him to support himself and his household from the proceeds of his writing. In
1924 Strachey purchased the lease to Ham Spray House and he, along with
Carrington and Partridge, moved in. He completed
Elizabeth and Essex in 1928 and started
The Greville Memoirs which were completed
posthumously by Ralph and Frances Partridge and Roger Fulford.
Though his frequent ill-health often made it difficult, Strachey enjoyed
traveling and made several trips abroad between 1928 and 1931. Late in 1931 he
began to decline rapidly from an illness which doctors were unable to identify.
He died January 21, 1932, of what was later found to be stomach cancer.
Carrington committed suicide a few weeks later, unable to live without him.
Sources
Holroyd, Michael.
Lytton Strachey: The New Biography. (New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994).
Palmer, Alan and Veronica.
Who's Who in Bloomsbury. (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1987).
Scope and Contents
Manuscripts and correspondence make up equal halves of the Lytton
Strachey Collection, 1885-1957. The materials are organized into two series,
with materials arranged alphabetically by title or author: I. Works, 1886-1931
(2.5 boxes) and II. Correspondence, 1885-1957 (2.5 boxes). This collection was
previously accessible through a card catalog, but has been re-cataloged as part
of a retrospective conversion project.
The Works Series is composed of holograph and typescript manuscripts of
two of Strachey's major biographical undertakings
Portraits in Miniature (1931), and
Queen Victoria (1921). Also present are
drafts of the well-known essay "English Letter
Writers" (1905) and research notes for various biographical projects.
Several poems are also included with a letter from Strachey to Leonard Woolf.
Titles are indexed in the Index of Works at the end of this guide.
The Correspondence Series is composed of three sections: Subseries A.
Outgoing Correspondence, 1885-1931; Subseries B. Incoming Correspondence,
1889-1931; and Subseries C. Third-Party Correspondence, 1890-1957. Most of the
letters present are accumulations of Strachey's correspondence with his mother,
Lady Jane Strachey, and Leonard Woolf. A few letters between people other than
Strachey are present, including a postcard from Strachey's sister Philippa to
James Doggart, written in 1957. All correspondents can be identified using the
Index of Correspondents in this guide.
Elsewhere in the Ransom Center is a photograph of Strachey, located in
the Literary Files of the Photography Collection, and a Vertical File
containing clippings of reviews of Strachey's publications. A portrait of
Strachey painted by Robert Fry is also present in the Art Collection.
Related Material
Other materials associated with Strachey may be found in the following
collections at the Ransom Center:
