Lytton Strachey
Lytton Strachey (1880–1932) was a pioneering English biographer whose innovative approach transformed the genre in the early 20th century. Coming from a distinguished family with notable figures in literature and public service, Strachey showcased remarkable talents from a young age, excelling at Trinity College, Cambridge. His literary career began with critical essays and notable works such as "Eminent Victorians," which introduced a fresh, candid style of biography influenced by French biographers like Sainte-Beuve. Strachey's writing emphasized the imperfections of his subjects, particularly prominent Victorian figures, allowing readers to connect with their humanity. His biography of Queen Victoria is particularly celebrated for its witty and intimate portrayal, while his work "Elizabeth and Essex" reflects his introspective style. Strachey was also an integral part of the Bloomsbury Group, a collective of writers and thinkers who sought to challenge societal norms and emphasize personal truth. His legacy continues to influence biographical writing, blending clarity and empathy to explore the complexities of human nature. Strachey passed away in 1932, leaving behind a significant literary impact.
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Subject Terms
Lytton Strachey
English biographer
- Born: March 1, 1880
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: January 21, 1932
- Place of death: Ham Spray House, near Hungerford, Berkshire, England
Biography
The new movement in biography as a literary form began in England with Giles Lytton Strachey (STRAY-chee) as World War I came to an end. Strachey came from a family distinguished in the army, the civil service, and literature. His mother, Lady Jane Strachey, was a respected essayist and an amateur student of French literature; Lionel Strachey, a cousin, had established a literary reputation in the United States; another cousin, John St. Loe Strachey, was the brilliant editor of the Spectator from 1898 to 1925, and his children, John Strachey and Mrs. Amabel Williams-Ellis, were both writers.
A delicate child of marked but rather special talents, Lytton Strachey was limited in his choice of profession. At Trinity College, Cambridge, he distinguished himself in his studies, composed verses, and won the Chancellor’s Medal with his poem “Ely.” Fearing that he lacked true creative power, however, he dallied with literature in the critical essays that he wrote while living with his mother on an independent income. He began writing sketches of the great and the near-great of the Victorian Age; some of these sketches were later published in Eminent Victorians. As biography, his style was new to the English public, but it caught their fancy, and the book sold well. Actually Strachey had been strongly influenced by French biographers, especially Sainte-Beuve—his first publication was Landmarks in French Literature—and their naturalistic approach suited his predilection for accentuating the negative in personal relations. Strachey laid emphasis on others’ weak points, especially among the famous in politics or letters.
Consciously or not, he was effecting in his attitude a new realism to which his readers reacted not with scorn but rather with greater insight and sympathy. With flaws, the sacrosanct Victorian figures became more human and thus more lovable. This was true especially in the reaction to his Queen Victoria. While this biography was just as iconoclastic as the others in its portrait of the queen, the very style of the book, witty and concise, brought her to life as a woman as no similar work or public eulogy had ever done. Emphasizing personality, he brought his subject down to the human level. His greatest popular success, Elizabeth and Essex, strongly reflects the author’s tendency to judge the world by what was within himself.
He moved with his mother to Bloomsbury, London, on a whim. By chance there were other literary people in the neighborhood, and they were welcomed at the Strachey home. Among them were Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster. Though known later as the Bloomsbury Group, their only tie besides sociability was a desire to reveal the warm current of fallibility beneath the facade of conventionality in English life. Among the members of the so-called Bloomsbury Group Strachey found his spiritual home and his friends, who shared his interest in the exercise of clarity, restraint, and precision as the basis of literary style. These qualities are all apparent in the portrait gallery of minor, even obscure, figures whom Strachey presents in his Portraits in Miniature, perhaps the best book of his lifetime. He died in 1932, at a country residence he had bought with his royalties from Queen Victoria.
Bibliography
Hampton, Christopher. Carrington. Boston: Faber & Faber, 1995. Biography of Dora Carrington, Strachey’s platonic lover.
Holroyd, Michael. Lytton Strachey: The New Biography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995. An up-to-date biography.
Rosenbaum, S. P., ed. The Bloomsbury Group: A Collection of Memoirs, Commentary, and Criticism. Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, 1995. Provides information and background for Strachey’s social milieu.
Taddeo, Julie Anne. Lytton Strachey and the Search for Modern Sexual Identity: The Last Eminent Victorian. New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002. A biography that brings contemporary queer studies to bear on Strachey’s life.