Uncommon arrangements
Subtitle: seven portraits of married life in London literary circles 1919-1939
By: by Katie Roiphe
Publisher: Virago
Published: 2008
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9781844082728
Subjects: Bloomsbury group; Litterateurs; Sexual behavior; Authors' spouses; Open marriage
Description: Cultural critic Roiphe delves deeply into one of the most layered of subjects: marriage. Drawn in part from the private memoirs, personal correspondence, and long-forgotten journals of the British literary community from 1910 to the Second World War, here are seven "marriages à la mode"--Each rising to the challenge of intimate relations in more or less creative ways: H.G. and Jane Wells; Katherine Mansfield; Vera Brittain and George Gordon Catlin; Vanessa and Clive Bell; and Vanessa's sister Virginia Woolf, herself no stranger to marital particularities, who sustained a brilliant running commentary on the most intimate details of those around her. Every chapter revolves around a crisis that occurred in each of these marriages, and how it was resolved--or not. In these portraits, Roiphe evokes "the fluctuations and shifts in attraction, the mysteries of lasting affection, the endurance and changes in love, and the role of friendship in marriage."--publisher description.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Marriage à la Mode; title: H.G. & Jane Wells; title: Katherine Mansfield & John Middleton Murry; title: Elizabeth Von Arnim & John Francis Russell; title: Vanessa & Clive Bell; title: Ottoline & Philip Morrell; title: Radclyffe Hall & Una Troubridge; title: Vera Brittain & George Gordon Catlin; title: Postscript.