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20th February 2024

In The Wise Virgins, Leonard Woolf writes that London intellectuals are sometimes deceived by  appearances in the suburbs with its tennis parties and uniforms of "straw hats and muslin dresses", when in fact each person there burns with "a fiery individuality". His novel does indeed include tennis matches and straw hats, and this gentle watercolour, The Tennis Party (undated, Private Collection) by Tom Simpson (1887-1926), would be a suitable illustration.

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