born March 1, 1880, London, Eng.
died Jan. 21, 1932, Ham Spray House, near Hungerford, Berkshire
English biographer and critic.
After studying at Cambridge, he became a leader in the Bloomsbury group . Though a self-identified homosexual, he was engaged very briefly to Virginia Woolf . Adopting an irreverent attitude to the past, he opened a new era of biographical writing with his Eminent Victorians (1918), consisting of four sketches of Victorian idols whom he portrayed as multifaceted, flawed human beings. Fascinated by personality and motive, he treated his subjects idiosyncratically and somewhat cynically. He also published Queen Victoria (1921), Elizabeth and Essex (1928), Portraits in Miniature (1931), and critical writings, especially on French literature.