Deceived With Kindness

Jan 18, 2025 2:44 PM

Author:Angelica Garnett

Angelica Garnett may truly be called a child of Bloomsbury. Her Aunt was Virginia Woolf, her mother Vanessa Bell, and her father Duncan Grant, though for many years Angelica believed herself, naturally enough, the daughter of Vanessa's husband Clive.

Her childhood homes, Charleston in Sussex and Gordon Square in London, were both centres of Bloomsbury activity, and she grew up surrounded by the most talked-about writers and artists of the day - Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Roger Fry, the Stracheys, Maynard Keynes, David Garnett (whom she later married), and many others.

But Deceived with Kindness is also a record of a young girl's particular struggle to achieve independence from that extraordinary and intense milieu as a mature and independent woman. With an honesty that is by degrees agonising and uplifting, the author creates a vibrant, poignant picture of her mother, Vanessa Bell, of her own emergent individuality, and of the Bloomsbury era.

Reviews

Passionate, lucid, risky, rash, hard to put down and impossible to forget

—— Hilary Spurling , Observer

Beautifully written and admirably honest... Refreshing and surprising

—— Fiona MacCarthy , The Times

Sympathetic and authoraitative...This biography, while solidly based on a myriad primary sources and a comprehensive range of secondary ones, flows easily with many nice touches...easily the best friendly account.

—— INA GILMOUR , FINANCIAL TIMES

A biography of almost unqualified excellence...comprehensive, authoritative, balanced and invariably (throughout more than 600 pages) readable...In a year or more of notable biographies, there has been nothing to touch it...as told by D.R. Thorpe it is a history of exceptionally high quality.

—— Roy Hattersley , New Statesman

One of the most absorbing depictions of the dark underside of radical politics in many years...a riveting account, teeming with intrigue and adventure and packed with the most astonishing characters

—— New Statesman

This is an amazing book full of incredible people all of whom turn out to be real and unbelievable stories, all of which turn out be true... A genuine tour de force

—— David Aaronovitch

Intriguing, provocative and written with a novelist's eye for detail, this book is an engrossing journey into a murky, subterranean world

—— Mike Rapport , BBC History Magazine

One of the most absorbing depictions of the dark underside of radical politics in many years... Butterworth has opted to present the anarchists in a mode that emphasises narrative over analysis. The result is a riveting account, teeming with intrigue and adventure and packed with the most astonishing characters. One cannot help wishing there were more extended analysis, however, for when Butterworth does offer broader observations, they are exceptionally astute.

—— John Gray , New Statesman

Alex Butterworth, in this wide-ranging account of 19th-century anarchist activity, does justice to both sides of the picture - the glowing ideal, its shady enactment

—— Lucy Hughes-Hallett , Daily Telegraph

Sweeping, extensively researched

—— Leo McKinstry , Express

Butterworth writes lucidly, in fine detail

—— Peter Preston , Observer

This is an exhilarating gallop through the history of anarchism

—— Financial Times

Historian Butterworth makes a first-rate addition to the growing list of books dealing with terrorism's origins and history... Delivering a virtuoso performance, Butterworth adds the hope that history will not repeat itself and that a successful new bloody ideology will not create the next scourge

—— Publisher's Weekly

This is entertaining stuff

—— Sunday Times, Christmas Round Up

Butterworth's fascination with his subject drips from the page...this is entertaining stuff

—— Dominic Sandbrook , Sunday Times

An astounding story of bitter civil warfare that raged across many countries for decades. Butterworth's passionate account of the anarchist movements born in the late 19th century describes a conflict that spawned its own "war on terror"

—— Steve Burniston , Guardian

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