So, I venture, Glendinning must be more of an apologist for the Leonard-as-saint theory, than the Leonard-as-monster one. “He was neither, and both,” she says. “Like we all are. He had a very emotional nature, and he was often struggling with himself. He had a streak of cruelty. But he was transformed by the love of his wife. He did his utter best to do what was right: he was a very moral man with the same clutch of terrors and faults as the rest of us.”

Like Virginia, when Leonard Woolf died, in 1969, his ashes were spread in the garden of Monk’s House, in Rodmell. Glendinning stayed in the house during her research into the book, spent time in that garden. It was the closest she physically came to Leonard Woolf. “I never met him in person,” she said. “But I often feel as if I did. Do I miss him now I have finished doing my research? Not yet I don’t, because I am busy publicising the book. And afterwards, when all the fuss has died down, I’m sure I’ll send him off on a holiday. But he’ll come back. I’ll always feel like I knew him.” AL