Biography
- Tolley, A. T.. “Bell, Julian Heward (1908–1937).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
- Bell, Julian. Winter Movement and Other Poems. London: Chatto and Windus, 1930. PR6003 .E434 W5 1930 E. J. Pratt Library at Victoria University
- --. Work for the Winter and Other Poems. London: Hogarth Press, 1936. PR 6003 .E434W67 1936 Robarts Library
- --. Essays, Poems, and Letters. Ed. by Quentin Bell. London: Hogarth Press, 1938. PR6003 .E434 1938A Robarts Library
- --. Still Life and Other Poems. Woodside, C.A.: Occasional Press, 1987. PR6003 .E434 S7 1987 E. J. Pratt Library at Victoria University
Julian Heward Bell was born on 4 February 1908 to (Arthur) Clive Heward Bell (art critic and historian) and Vanessa Bell (artist, sister of Virginia Woolf). Growing up, Bell was surrounded by many of the important Bloomsbury figures. He received his education at Leighton Park School, and later at King's College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, his first book of poems Winter Movement (1930) was published. It was well received and was even compared to W. H. Auden's Poems, which was published in the same year. Despite the relative success of this collection and those which followed, Bell could not adequately fit in at either Cambridge or the Bloomsbury group into which he was born. His thesis was rejected despite the fact that Roger Fry, a close family friend, was one of its readers. In 1935 Bell accepted a position at the University of Wuhan, China. He returned before his contract was completed because like many other young intellectuals of his day, he was drawn to the conflict of the Spanish War and to the ideological stance taken by the side of the government. Due to the pacifist leanings of his family, Bell chose to enroll as an ambulance driver with the Spanish Medical Aid. He was wounded at Villanueva de la Cañada in the battle of Brunete on 18 July 1937 and taken to a military hospital where he died later that day.
