Strachey, Lytton (redirected from Lytton Strachey)

Strachey, Lytton (Giles Lytton Strachey), 1880–1932, English biographer and critic, educated at Cambridge. He was one of the leading members of the Bloomsbury group. Strachey is credited with having revolutionized the art of writing biography. In reaction to the copious dull scholarship and the lengthy panegyrics of the 19th cent., he determined to write biographies that were swift, selective, critical, witty, and artistic. His work includes Eminent Victorians (1918), a volume of short biographical studies; Queen Victoria (1921), his masterpiece; Elizabeth and Essex (1928); and Portraits in Miniature (1931). As a critic, Strachey was the author of such works as Landmarks in French Literature, a study of the classical spirit (1912), and Books and Characters (1922).

Bibliography

See biography by M. Holroyd (2 vol., 1968; rev. ed. 1995).

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Strachey, (Giles) Lytton

(born March 1, 1880, London, Eng.—died Jan. 21, 1932, Ham Spray House, near Hungerford, Berkshire) English biographer and critic. After studying at Cambridge, he became a leader in the Bloomsbury group. Though a self-identified homosexual, he was engaged very briefly to Virginia Woolf. Adopting an irreverent attitude to the past, he opened a new era of biographical writing with his Eminent Victorians (1918), consisting of four sketches of Victorian idols whom he portrayed as multifaceted, flawed human beings. Fascinated by personality and motive, he treated his subjects idiosyncratically and somewhat cynically. He also published Queen Victoria (1921), Elizabeth and Essex (1928), Portraits in Miniature (1931), and critical writings, especially on French literature.