A Russian Jew of Bloomsbury : the life and times of Samuel Koteliansky

Includes bibliographical references (p. [411]-427) and index

Acknowledgments -- - Illustrations following pages 11 and 186 -- - Introduction: Right Place, Right Time -- - Part 1 - From ShmiliK To Kot: 1880-1930 -- - 1 - Shmilik -- - 2 - 'Kot': The Jew in London -- - 3 - Year 1915: Kot as Kangaroo -- - 4 - Revolutions and Catastrophes -- - 5 - H.G. Wells in Russia and the Death of Mansfield -- - 6 - Translating for the Hogarth Press -- - 7 - The Adelphi Affair and the Café Royal -- - 8 - Rozanov and Lady Chatterley's Lover. The End of an Era -- - Part 2 - After Lawrence: 1931-1955 -- - 9 - Mournings: Old Enemies and New Friends -- - 10 - Cresset Press: Losing Equilibrium -- - 11 - May Sarton, Ottoline's Death, and Gertler's Suicide -- - 12 - World War II and Its Aftermath -- - 13 - Full Circle -- - Post Mortem -- - Appendices -- - A. - S.S. Koteliansky, 1880-1955: A Chronology -- - B. - Who's Who in Koteliansky's Life in England -- - c - Lady Glenavy: More Memories of Kot -- - D. - Koteliansky and Stephen Spender -- - E. - Two Letters from Frieda Lawrence to Koteliansky -- - Abbreviations -- - Notes -- - Bibliography -- - Index

Samuel Koteliansky (1880-1955) fled the pogroms of Russia in 1911 and established himself as a friend of many of Britain's literati and intellectuals, who were fascinated by his homeland's more civilized side: the Ballets Russes, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov. Kot, as he was known, became an indispensable guide to Russian culture for England's leading writers, artists, and intellectuals, who in turn helped introduce English audiences to Russian works

A Russian Jew of Bloomsbury looks at the remarkable influence that an outsider had on the tightly knit circle of Britain's cultural elite. Among Koteliansky's friends were Katherine Mansfield, Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Mark Gertler, Lady Ottoline Morrell, H.G. Wells, and Dilys Powell. But it was his close and turbulent friendship with D.H. Lawrence that proved to be Koteliansky's lasting legacy. In a lively and vibrant narrative, Galya Diment shows how, despite Kot's determination, he could never escape the dark aspects of his past or overcome the streak of anti-Semitism that ran through British society, including the hearts and minds of many of his famous literary friends

'Galya Diment has done it again. The author of the acclaimed Pniniad, about Nabokov's major model for his legendary Russian lecturer, now turns to another Russian Jew with a still wider resonance in English literature. Part biography, part cultural history of the early twentieth-century impact of Russian literature on English literature (focusing on Koteliansky as conduit and catalyst), and part exploration of being Jewish and foreign in England and in Bloomsbury, the book teems with vivid vignettes of the emotionally complicated Koteliansky, his close friend D.H. Lawrence (and his foe Frieda Lawrence), Katherine Mansfield, Virginia and Leonard Woolf, H.G. Wells, and many more. A fascinating read for lovers of literature, culture, history, and personality.' Brian Boyd, author of Vladimir Nabokov and On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction