Leslie Stephen was born in 1832 into a famed liberal family. His mother's family were associated with the Clapham Sect, and his paternal grandfather, James, was an anti-Slaver and associate of Wilberforce. Stephen's father, Sir James, was a noted statesman, historian and biographer, and his brother Sir James Fitzjames was a renowned judge, historian and essayist. In his own lifetime, Leslie Stephen was a very highly regarded man of letters, and deeply influential on the course of historical and literary studies; however, he is much better known today as the father of two women better known under their married names, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, and as the model for the character of Mr. Ramsay in the latter's
To The Lighthouse(1927).
Initially, Stephen was set for a career in the
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