The artist, critic and writer Quentin Bell here provides a remarkable collection of pen portraits - of his parents Vanessa and Clive; of his aunt and uncle, Virginia and Leonard Woolf; of Roger Fry, E. M. Forster, Ottoline Morrell, Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey and many more.

'A superb collection of portraits, sketched with all the visual power of a practitioner of painting; and though anecdotes abound it is also a contemplative work held together by a firmly disciplined vision'. Hugh Cecil, SPECTATOR 'He confesses that he found it difficult to write about people whom he knew so well, but nobody has described them better. . . . His book displays affection, great good humour and impeccable taste. . . It's purpose is not to preach, but to enertain. It certainly does. ' Nigel Nicholson, DAILY TELEGRAPH