In Bloomsbury there are nine characters in search of an author. This Pirandello pirouette was turned by Leon Edel 15 or 20 years ago. Since then, the ratio has reversed to nine authors in search of any one Bloomsbury character, especially for such important dramatis personae as Professor Edel's: the economist John Maynard Keynes, the man of letters Leonard Woolf, the novelist Virginia Woolf, the biographer Lytton Strachey, the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, the artist-critic Roger Fry, the art critic Clive Bell and the literary critic Desmond MacCarthy.

So "Bloomsbury: A House of Lions" has to admit that every one of these big cats will soon have exhausted its nine lives. But Professor Edel's book is deftly different. Artful and craftful, he weaves his way and their ways. "The warp and woof of their experience" is fashioned into a very professional piece of tailoring. Probably for Professor Edel...