movement julian bell
Bloomsbury is an area in the West End , central London , forming part of the London Borough of Camden and located between Euston Road and Holborn . It was developed by the Russell family in the 17th and 18th centuries into a fashionable residential area . It is notable for its array of garden squares , literary connections ( exemplified by the ___MASK21___ ), and numerous cultural , educational and health - care institutions . Although Bloomsbury was not the first area of London to have acquired a formal square , Bloomsbury Square , laid out in 1660 by Thomas Wriothesley , 4th Earl of Southampton , as Southampton Square was the first square to be named as such . Much of the district was planned and built by James Burton . The ___MASK21___  or Bloomsbury Set  was an influential group of associated English writers , intellectuals , philosophers and artists , the best known members of which included Virginia Woolf , John Maynard Keynes , E . M . Forster and Lytton Strachey . This loose collective of friends and relatives lived , worked or studied together near Bloomsbury , London , during the first half of the 20th century . According to Ian Ousby , " although its members denied being a group in any formal sense , they were united by an abiding belief in the importance of the arts ". Their works and outlook deeply influenced literature , aesthetics , criticism , and economics as well as modern attitudes towards feminism , pacifism , and sexuality . Angelica Vanessa Garnett , née Bell ( 25 December 1918  4 May 2012 ), was a British writer , painter and artist . She was the author of the memoir " Deceived with Kindness " ( 1984 ), an account of her experience growing up at the heart of the ___MASK21___ . Julian Heward Bell ( 4 February 1908 -- 18 July 1937 ) was an English poet , and the son of Clive and Vanessa Bell ( who was the elder sister of Virginia Woolf ) . The writer Quentin Bell was his younger brother and the writer and painter Angelica Garnett was his half - sister . His relationship with his mother is explored in Susan Sellers ' novel Vanessa and Virginia . Born in the St Pancras district of London , he was brought up mainly at Charleston , Sussex . He was educated at Leighton Park School and King ' s College , Cambridge , where he joined the Cambridge Apostles . He was a friend of some of the Cambridge Five , and sometimes claimed as Anthony Blunt ' s lover . ( In the BBC dramatisation Cambridge Spies he appears as Blunt ' s lover and Guy Burgess ' s unrequited love interest . ) After graduating he worked towards a college fellowship , without success . In 1935 he went to China , to a position teaching English at Wuhan University . He wrote letters describing his relationship with a married lover , K . ; the identity of this woman became a sensitive issue when the Chinese - British novelist Hong Ying published a fictionalized account , K : The Art of Love in 1999 . After a 2002 ruling by a Chinese court , that the book was ' defamation of the dead ' , the author rewrote the book , which was published in 2003 under the title The English Lover . Bell was initially a pacifist and edited an anthology of memoirs of conscientious objectors from the First World War , We Did Not Fight . In 1937 , Bell became increasing supportive of the socialist and anti - fascist movements and decided to enlist in the Spanish Civil War . His parents and his aunt Virginia tried to dissuade him ; eventually they persuaded Julian to get a job as an ambulance driver on the Republican side , rather than a soldier . His motive for going to Spain was a general sympathy for the cause of the Spanish Republic , plus `` the usefulness of war experience in the future and the prestige one would gain in literature and - even more - Left politics '' . After just a month in Spain he was killed in the battle of Brunete , aged 29 . He was hit by bomb fragments whilst driving an ambulance . Quentin Bell ' s son , Julian ' s nephew , is also named Julian Bell . He is the author of Mirror of the World : A New History of Art ( 2007 ) . Vanessa Bell ( née Stephen ; 30 May 1879  7 April 1961 ) was an English painter and interior designer , a member of the ___MASK21___ and the sister of Virginia Woolf . Susan Sellers is a British author , translator , editor and novelist . She is Professor of English and Related Literature at the University of St Andrews , and co - General Editor of the Cambridge University Press edition of the writings of Virginia Woolf . Sellers ' first novel , " Vanessa and Virginia ", is a fictionalised account of the life of Vanessa Bell and of her complex relationship with her sister ( Two Ravens , 2008 and Harcourt , New York ). It has also been translated into sixteen languages , including Chinese ( Nanjing University Press , 2012 ), Spanish ( emece , 2011 ), Turkish ( Sel , 2011 ), French ( editions autrement , 2011 ), Swedish ( Ordfront , 2010 ) and Dutch ( Artemis , 2009 ), and was adapted for the stage by Elizabeth Wright in 2009 , touring in the UK , France , Germany and Poland and culminating in a 3 - week run at Riverside Studios , London ( Moving Stories Theatre , see references ). Her second novel , " Given the Choice ", is set in the ___MASK19___ and music worlds , focusses on a strong and contentious central character , Marion , and gives the reader a choice of three possible endings . As the cover explains , "" Given the Choice " is a novel about growing older and growing up , about making choices and learning to live with them ."