Thoby Stephen

{{Short description|Founding member of the Bloomsbury Group (1880-1906)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Thoby Stephen

| image = File:Thoby Stephen by George Charles Beresford.jpeg

| caption = Thoby Stephen by George Charles Beresford

| birth_name = Julian Thoby Stephen

| birth_date = {{birth date|1880|9|9|df=y}}

| birth_place =

| death_date = {{death date and age|1906|11|20|1880|9|9|df=y}}

| death_place = England

| occupation =

| parents = Leslie Stephen
Julia Stephen

| relatives = Vanessa Bell (sister)
Virginia Woolf (sister)
Adrian Stephen (brother)
George Duckworth
(maternal half-brother)
Gerald Duckworth
(maternal half-brother)

}}

Julian Thoby Stephen (9 September 1880 – 20 November 1906), known as the Goth, was the brother of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, both prominent members of the Bloomsbury Group, and of Adrian Stephen.

Thoby Stephen was the eldest son of Leslie Stephen and Julia Prinsep Stephen. The result of his mother's second marriage, he was therefore a half-brother of George and Gerald Duckworth, her sons with first husband Herbert Duckworth.

File:Stephen, Leslie 1904.jpg]]

Stephen was educated at Clifton College,"Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. p192: Bristol; J.W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April, 1948 after failing to gain a place at Eton. However, this did not hold him back, since he won an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge,{{acad|id=STFN899JT|name=Stephen, Julian Thoby}} from Clifton. He was a friend of Lytton Strachey, who was enchanted by his masculinity and introduced him to the "Reading Club". He was described as "over six feet tall and of somewhat ponderous build".

Stephen is credited with starting the Bloomsbury Group's Thursday evening gatherings.{{cite book |last=Scott |first=Bonnie Kime |title=Refiguring Modernism: Women of 1928 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=48BOFbe0bYkC&pg=PA188 |year=1995 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=0-253-20995-1 |pages=188– }}

He was expected to distinguish himself, but he contracted typhoid at the age of 26 while on holiday in Greece, and died shortly after he was brought back to England. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery with his father and mother.

Vanessa Bell's eldest son, the poet Julian Bell, was named after him.{{cite web |title=Document: Woolf's Letter to a Young Poet |url=http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/tag/julian-thoby-stephen/ |website=Paris Review |accessdate=27 July 2014}}

He is the basis for the character of Tibby Schlegel in E.M. Forster's 1910 novel Howards End. Virginia Woolf's 1931 novel The Waves is considered by some critics to make significant reference to Thoby Stephen.