Adrian was the youngest of the four Stephen children. He felt overshadowed by his father's favourite, Thoby and by his talented sisters Vanessa and Virginia.

After Sir Leslie Stephen's death in 1904 the four of them set up home together in Bloomsbury; their house in Gordon Square became the nucleus of the Bloomsbury group.

In 1910 Adrian had a love affair with Duncan Grant; it was in that year that they both participated in the famous Dreadnought Hoax, described by Adrian in a drily humorous account.

In 1914 he married Karin Costelloe, by whom he had two daughters, Ann and Judith. He and his wife fell under the influence of Freud and were among the first English psychoanalysts.

Source:

• Charleston: An Artist's Home. Available at www.charleston.org.uk

• Charleston Farmhouse Exterior Photos

Recommended Reading:

• Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Gardens
• Snapshots of Bloomsbury: The Private Lives of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell