Leonard Woolf was a Jew, a socialist and an anti-imperialist who began life as a colonial administrator. He was a polemical author and journalist campaigning for collective security as the only way to prevent wards, and his work was instrumental in the drawing up of the League of Nations charter. Persistence and energy were his chief characteristics; he was also a gifted novelist, a ground-breaking publisher, a dedicated gardener, an animal-tamer, and, most famously, the husband of Virginia Woolf., author of a new biography of Leonard Woolf, explores a remarkable twentieth-century figure. Chaired by Romesh Gunesekera.

Leonard Woolf was a Jew, a socialist and an anti-imperialist who began life as a colonial administrator. He was a polemical author and journalist campaigning for collective security as the only way to prevent wards, and his work was instrumental in the drawing up of the League of Nations charter. Persistence and energy were his chief characteristics; he was also a gifted novelist, a ground-breaking publisher, a dedicated gardener, an animal-tamer, and, most famously, the husband of Virginia Woolf.Victoria Glendinning, author of a new biography of Leonard Woolf, explores a remarkable twentieth-century figure. Chaired by Romesh Gunesekera.

Recorded on Monday 23 October.