Dora Carrington's position on the periphery of the Bloomsbury set owed much less to her looks than to the wit and candour that masked an inner secretiveness. Profoundly enigmatic, she lived a life fraught with unresolved tensions that fascinated friends such as Lytton Strachey, but irritated critics, including Aldous Huxley and D.H.Lawrence. She loved truth but lied constantly, rejected lovers only to always lure them back, and delighted in painting, although her work frequently dissatisfied her. Gretchen Gerzina's biography provides a surprising portrait of this mysterious and talented woman, whose artistic reputation has grown steadily since her suicide in 1932.