John Steinbeck in 1939 Born

Activities at Talland

Her brother's keeper: Virginia and Adrian Stephen playing cricket, 1886

Julia, Leslie and Virginia, Library, Talland House, 1892

Virginia and Vanessa, 1894^[69]

In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy.^[8] As her husband observed, "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker".^[70] Amongst their guests in 1893 were the Brookes, whose children, including Rupert Brooke, played with the Stephen children. Rupert and his group of Cambridge Neo-pagans would come to play an important role in their lives in the years before the First World War.^[71] While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London.^[65][66][l] Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles.^[35] Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith,^[72] as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than at their mother's Little Holland House.^[60] The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895.^[66]

For the children, it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921,^[73] she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden … The sound of the sea at night … almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain".^[73][3][74] Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922),^[75] To the Lighthouse (1927),^[38] and The Waves (1931).^[76][77]