This is the story of a deep and close relationship between two sisters - Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. The influence they exerted over each others lives, their competitiveness, the fierce love they had for each other and also their intense rivalry is explored here with subtlety and compassion. The thoughts, motives and actions of these two remarkably artistic women who jointly created the Bloomsbury Group is revealed with all its intricacies in this moving biography.
A Very Close Conspiracy: Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf
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An outstanding work, and reading it is a source of real pleasure ... one of the best books on Virginia Woolf to date (LITERARY REVIEW )
Her unlayering of this complex relationship is subtle and far-reaching ...The wealth of the material makes possible some of the brilliant equations to be found in this book (SUNDAY TIMES )
Dunn plunges deep beneath the surface to the complicated emotions and personalities of these two women, illuminating them with great clarity and understanding. (OBSERVER )
Jane Dunn's astute account of their relationship is a revealing pleasure. (INDEPENDENT )
Her unlayering of this complex relationship is subtle and far-reaching ...The wealth of the material makes possible some of the brilliant equations to be found in this book (SUNDAY TIMES )
Dunn plunges deep beneath the surface to the complicated emotions and personalities of these two women, illuminating them with great clarity and understanding. (OBSERVER )
Jane Dunn's astute account of their relationship is a revealing pleasure. (INDEPENDENT )
Book Description
* A moving and important book on the relationship between two remarkable sisters who jointly created the Bloomsbury Group
* 'It is almost too true and too moving to be read by a close relation' Quentin Bell
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
As the title implies, this is not so much a biography, as a book looking at the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. The author examines the girls childhood, where they were given a rudimentary education and were expected to become practised in the "feminine accomplishments of music, dancing and presiding over the tea table." In fact, all that was necessary for the "great adventure of marriage and motherhood". Their mother certainly idolised her sons and saw men as more important, to be deferred to and valued above women. She also had a caustic and difficult side, which both girls seem to have overlooked in their desperation for her attention and Virginia was shocked in later years when a friend criticised a photograph of her mother. On the death of their mother and their half sister Stella, Vanessa was the eldest female in the family and responsible for the household, a role she seems to have clung to, however unwillingly, throughout her life.
Perhaps the role as mother figure helped Vanessa in a household which disregarded her interest and talent in art. Both Virginia and Vanessa resented their lack of education, but Virginia's early interest in writing was more acceptable in a family of writers, whereas art was less valued. Vanessa found herself compared unfavourably to Virginia, while her art was neither cherished or valued, but seen as a feminine 'hobby'. However, it was Virginia who wrote to her sister, "I can never believe that you approve of me in any way, strange as it may seem" and Virginia who craved her sisters love and approval throughout her life.
On the death of their father, the girls set up home elsewhere, with their brothers Thoby and Adrian.... Read more ›
Perhaps the role as mother figure helped Vanessa in a household which disregarded her interest and talent in art. Both Virginia and Vanessa resented their lack of education, but Virginia's early interest in writing was more acceptable in a family of writers, whereas art was less valued. Vanessa found herself compared unfavourably to Virginia, while her art was neither cherished or valued, but seen as a feminine 'hobby'. However, it was Virginia who wrote to her sister, "I can never believe that you approve of me in any way, strange as it may seem" and Virginia who craved her sisters love and approval throughout her life.
On the death of their father, the girls set up home elsewhere, with their brothers Thoby and Adrian.... Read more ›
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Jane Dunn - biographer of Mary Shelley, Antonia White, and more recently Elizabeth I & Mary Queen of Scots - has written an exceptionally absorbing account of the sibling relationship between the author Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) and the painter Vanessa Bell (1879-1961).
I found it fascinating to learn more about their mother Julia Stephen who tends to be something of a cipher in books related to Woolf and Bell, partly because her death in 1895 meant that she left their lives early. The tragedy of her death - when Virginia was 13 and Vanessa just short of 16 - provoked different reactions in the sisters: Vanessa, who identified more strongly with her mother and was already known for her practicality and good sense, "became increasingly sensible and self-contained" (36). Virginia, who experienced more ambivalent feelings towards her mother, felt painfully defenceless in the aftermath - "Her death was the greatest disaster that could happen", she wrote - and looked even more strongly to her elder sister to provide emotional stability and direction.
In contrast to the quiet intimacy of the sisters, the anguish of their father Leslie Stephen, for whom not only some members of his family but also Jane Dunn seems to have little patience, was "self-centred, self-pitying and noisy" (35). In a damning summary, Dunn zooms in on the crux of his difficult character - his "greed for female sympathy and blindness to his own tyranny" (43).... Read more ›
I found it fascinating to learn more about their mother Julia Stephen who tends to be something of a cipher in books related to Woolf and Bell, partly because her death in 1895 meant that she left their lives early. The tragedy of her death - when Virginia was 13 and Vanessa just short of 16 - provoked different reactions in the sisters: Vanessa, who identified more strongly with her mother and was already known for her practicality and good sense, "became increasingly sensible and self-contained" (36). Virginia, who experienced more ambivalent feelings towards her mother, felt painfully defenceless in the aftermath - "Her death was the greatest disaster that could happen", she wrote - and looked even more strongly to her elder sister to provide emotional stability and direction.
In contrast to the quiet intimacy of the sisters, the anguish of their father Leslie Stephen, for whom not only some members of his family but also Jane Dunn seems to have little patience, was "self-centred, self-pitying and noisy" (35). In a damning summary, Dunn zooms in on the crux of his difficult character - his "greed for female sympathy and blindness to his own tyranny" (43).... Read more ›
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By P. GRESWELL
Format:Paperback
I've read little about the relationships within the Stephens family. Virginia and Vanessa had difficult and often sad lives and their many losses through the death of family members brought them closer together as sisters. They supported each other through thick and thin and you cannot understand either of them without knowing something about the other. Vanessa bore more of the burden of family responsibility especially when it came to running the household and pandering to the demands of their self centred father. One always thinks of Virginia as the sensitive vulnerable one but Vanessa was strong because she had to be and just as fragile as her sister. I will read Virginia Woolf's novels with a different insight after reading this book.
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