A boy at the Hogarth Press - Richard Kennedy

"I know I was expected to say something brilliant for the benefit of the group that had collected round us. The truth was that I had only really readOrlando,Mrs DallowayandThe Common Reader. . . I said I didn't think she created character as well as a writer like Turgenev. I could see this didn't go down at all well and felt rather like Peter denying Christ."

After a rather unsuccessful education at Marlborough College, in 192616-year old Richard Kennedy was put firmly under the wing of Leonard Woolf as his new protg at the Woolfs' printing press. Some40 years later, and by then a professional illustrator, he wrote his recollections of his time with Virginia and Leonard Woolf in candid and often hilarious detail. He tells of the success that Virginia enjoyed, of their chaotic office with its collapsing shelves and of his own often hapless attempts to keep pace with the literary giants around him. Illustrated throughout with Kennedy's own sketches, this is a delightful work that offers a unique peep into the Bloomsbury set.