Bloomsbury Group Letters Going to Auction

Posted on August 24, 2009

Letters from the Bloomsbury Group are expected to fetch up to 80,000 pounds sterling at auction. The collection of unpublished letters includes more than 700 letters between Helen Anrep and other Bloomsbury members, including Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry. The Guardian reports:

The letters cover a broad range of topics, from family news and recipes to more emotional and personal issues. The letters date from 1919 to 1947, covering the span of the Bloomsbury era, and will be sold by Gorringes Auctioneers in Lewes, East Sussex, on 3 September.

Gorringes provided some interesting background on the letters:

Helen Anrep met the painter Roger Fry in the mid-1920s at a party at the studio of her friend Vanessa Bell. Following this encounter, Anrep left her husband, the Russian mosaicist Boris Anrep, and lived with Fry as man and wife, providing critical support for his work, until Fry's death in 1934.

Although neither an artist nor an intellectual herself, Anrep was deeply interested in the arts and became a close friend and confidante of many of the Bloomsbury group. The content of the letters in the archive covers a broad range of topics, from family news, recipes and comments on gardening to more emotional and personal issues. One of the most poignant letters is written by Vanessa Bell shortly after the death of her son Julian in the Spanish Civil War in 1937. She writes: "Helen dearest. In case you hear - Julian died from wounds a few days ago." V

Helen Anrep's contribution to the Bloomsbury group in terms of friendship and support is clearly depicted in this collection of correspondence which offers Bloomsbury scholars the opportunity to acquire further insights into the complex web of relationships within the group.

The letters cover the time period between 1919 to 1947, the entire span of the Bloomsbury era.

---

---