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Giles Lytton Strachey Biography & Facts

Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of Eminent Victorians, he established a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit. His biography Queen Victoria (1921) was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Early life and education Youth Strachey was born on 1 March 1880 at Stowey House, Clapham Common, London, the fifth son and 11th child of Lieutenant General Sir Richard Strachey, an officer in the British colonial armed forces, and his second wife, the former Jane Grant, who became a leading supporter of the women's suffrage movement. He was named Giles Lytton after an early 16th-century Gyles Strachey and the first Earl of Lytton, who had been a friend of Richard Strachey's when he was Viceroy of India in the late 1870s. The Earl of Lytton was also Lytton Strachey's godfather. The Stracheys had 13 children in total, 10 of whom survived to adulthood, including Lytton's sister Dorothy Strachey and youngest brother, the psychoanalyst, James Strachey. When Lytton was four years old the family moved from Stowey House to 69 Lancaster Gate, north of Kensington Gardens. This was their home until Sir Richard retired 20 years later. Lady Strachey was an enthusiast for languages and literature, making her children perform their own plays and write verse from early ages. She thought that Lytton had the potential to become a great artist so she decided that he would receive the best education possible in order to be "enlightened." By 1887 he had begun the study of French, and he was to admire French culture throughout his life. Strachey was educated at a series of schools, beginning at Parkstone, Dorset. This was a small school with a wide range of after-class activities, where Strachey's acting skills exceeded those of other pupils; he was particularly convincing when portraying female parts. He told his mother how much he liked dressing as a woman in real life to confuse and entertain others. Lady Strachey decided in 1893 that her son should start his more serious education and sent him to Abbotsholme School in Rocester, Derbyshire, where pupils were required to do manual work every day. Strachey, who always had a fragile physique, objected to this requirement and after few months he was transferred to Leamington College, where he became a victim of savage bullying. Sir Richard, however, told his son to "grin and bear the petty bullying." Strachey did eventually adapt to the school and became one of its best pupils. In the 1960s one of the four 'houses' at the school was named after him. His health also seems to have improved during the three years he spent at Leamington, although various illnesses continued to plague him. When Strachey turned 17 in 1897, Lady Strachey decided that he was ready to leave school and go to university, but because she thought he was too young for Oxford she decided that he should first attend a smaller institution, the University of Liverpool. There Strachey befriended the professor of modern literature, Walter Raleigh, who, besides being his favourite teacher, also became the most influential figure in his life before he went up to Cambridge. In 1899 Strachey took the Christ Church scholarship examination, wanting to get into Balliol College, Oxford, but the examiners determined that Strachey's academic achievements were not remarkable and were struck by his "shyness and nervousness." They recommended Lincoln College as a more suitable institution, advice that Lady Strachey took as an insult, deciding then that he would attend Trinity College, Cambridge, instead. Cambridge Strachey was admitted as a Pensioner at Trinity College, Cambridge, on 30 September 1899. He became an Exhibitioner in 1900 and a Scholar in 1902. He won the Chancellor's Medal for English Verse in 1902 and was given a BA degree after he had won a second class in the History Tripos in June 1903. He did not however take leave of Trinity, but remained until October 1905 to work on a thesis that he hoped would gain him a fellowship. Strachey was often ill and had to leave Cambridge repeatedly to recover from the palpitations that affected him. Strachey's years at Cambridge were happy and productive. Among the freshers at Trinity there were three with whom Strachey soon became closely associated: Clive Bell, Leonard Woolf and Saxon Sydney-Turner. With another undergraduate, A. J. Robertson, these students formed a group called the Midnight Society, which, in the opinion of Bell, was the source of the Bloomsbury Group. Other close friends at Cambridge were Thoby Stephen and his sisters Vanessa and Virginia Stephen (later Bell and Woolf respectively). Strachey also belonged to the Conversazione Society, the Cambridge Apostles to which Tennyson, Hallam, Maurice, and Sterling had once belonged. The Apostles formulated an elitist doctrine of "Higher Sodomy" which differentiated the homosexual acts of the intelligent from those of "ordinary" men.: 20–23  In these years Strachey was highly prolific in writing verse, much of which has been preserved and some of which was published at the time. Strachey also became acquainted with other men who greatly influenced him, including G. Lowes Dickinson, John Maynard Keynes, Walter Lamb (brother of the painter Henry Lamb), George Mallory, Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore. Moore's philosophy, with its assumption that the summum bonum lies in achieving a high quality of humanity, in experiencing delectable states of mind and in intensifying experience by contemplating great works of art, was a particularly important influence. In the summer of 1903 Strachey applied for a position in the education department of the Civil Service. Even though the letters of recommendation written for him by those under whom he had studied showed that he was held in high esteem at Cambridge, he failed to get the appointment and decided to try for a fellowship at Trinity College. From 1903 through 1905 he wrote a 400-page dissertation on Warren Hastings, the 18th-century Indian imperialist, but the work failed to secure Strachey the fellowship and led to his return to London. Career Beginnings After Strachey left Cambridge in 1905, his mother assigned him a bed-sitting room at 69 Lancaster Gate. After the family moved to 67 Belsize Gardens in Hampstead, and later to another house in the same street, he was assigned other bed-sitters. But, as he was about to turn 30, family life started irritating him, and he took to travelling into the country more often, supporting himself by writing reviews and critical articles for The Spectator and other periodicals. In 1909 he spent some weeks at a health spa in Saltsjöbaden, near Stockholm in Sweden. In this period he also lived for a while in a cottage on Dartmoor and about 1911–12 spent a whole winter at East Ilsley on the Berkshire Downs. During this.... Discover the Giles Lytton Strachey popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Giles Lytton Strachey books.