Bibliography - Quentin Bell
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Charleston, Sussex, by Quentin Bell, published c.1980 (12 pp., London: Hogarth Press) accessible at: British Library

Bloomsbury, by Quentin Bell, published 27 March 1986 (2nd revised edition, 128 pp., Weidenfeld & Nicholson, ISBN-10: 0297788264 & ISBN-13: 9780297788263) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/508920]

Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Gardens, by Quentin Bell and Virginia Nicholson, published 30 October 1997 (160 pp., Frances Lincoln, ISBN-10: 0711211337 & ISBN-13: 9780711211339) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries

This volume encapsulates the artistic sensibility and casual sophistication of the Bloomsbury Group. In 1916, Virginia Woolf wrote to her sister, Vanessa Bell, that though the farmhouse at Charleston in Sussex was primitive, "you could make it lovely." Six months later, Bell moved in and, treating the house as a blank canvas, went on to create a treasury of Bloomsbury art. As the best remaining example of the decorative style of Duncan Grant and Vanessa bell, Charleston presents the visitor with insights into the art of the Bloomsbury Group. The book provides family memories and anecdotes drawn from a lifetime's experience of Charleston. Each room links the interiors with some of the leading cultural figures of the 20th century, guests such as Vanessa's sister Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey. Specially commissioned photographs portray the esence of the Bloomsbury style both throughout the house, with its painted furniture and walls, decorative items and paintings and in the garden.

Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Gardens, by Quentin Bell and Virginia Nicholson, published 1 May 2004 (reprint, 160 pp., Frances Lincoln, ISBN-10: 071122370X & ISBN-13: 9780711223707) accessible at: East Sussex Libraries

Set in the heart of the Sussex Downs, Charleston Farmhouse is the most important remaining example of Bloomsbury decorative style, created by the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Quentin Bell, the younger son of Clive and Vanessa Bell, and his daughter Virghinia Nicholson, tell the story of this unique house, linking it with some of the leading cultural figures who were invited there, including Vanessa's sister Virginia Woolf, the writer Lytton Strachey, the economist Maynard Keynes and the art critic Roger Fry. The house and garden are portrayed through Alen MacWeeney's atmostpheric photographs; pictures from Vanessa Bell's family album convey the flavour of the household in its heyday.