Bloomsbury Group in LGBT history Monk's House, she would meet Vita Sackville-West, writing her Roman à clef about her. Woolf also met the LGBT people around her, including Harold Nicolson, Sackville-West's husband, Benedict Nicolson, their LGBT son and Violet Trefusis, her former lover. Composer and suffragist Ethel Smyth was another later acquaintance of Virginia Woolf. Bloomsbury Group in LGBT history The Bloomsbury Group plays a prominent role in the LGBT history of its day. While still in the Bloomsbury area LGBT activity was all very much in a single group. For example, Duncan Grant, a homosexual with bisexual leanings, had affairs with Maynard Keynes, James
Virginia Woolf weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her." After their affair ended, the two women remained friends until Woolf's death in 1941. Virginia Woolf also remained close to her surviving siblings, Adrian and Vanessa; Thoby had died of typhoid fever at the age of 26. Virginia was needing a country retreat to escape to, and on 24 December 1910 Virginia found a house for rent in Firle, Sussex, near Lewes