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Introduction
The Charleston Papers provide a broad survey
of the affairs and concerns of leading members of the Bloomsbury Group.
With a particular focus on the correspondence Duncan Grant and Clive
and Vanessa Bell conducted with friends and associates, the collection
contains nearly 5,000 items, largely photocopies of letters. Many of
the originals are now in the Tate Gallery archives, but there is some
original material at Sussex, including two letters from Lytton Strachey
to Clive Bell. The list of prestigious and colourful figures whose
correspondence appears in the collection includes Jean Cocteau and
Pablo Picasso. There are single letters from Henri Matisse, Andre Gide,
Somerset Maugham and Henry James, 91 letters from J M Keynes and 14
from Kathleen Raine [see also The Charles Madge Archive]. Over 900
letters from Virginia Woolf’s maternal grandmother, Maria Jackson,
were added to the collection in 1989.