A Remarkable Woman
Three Fascinating Things About Vita Sackville-West
Vita had passionate, obsessive relationships with her female lovers. And Vita had a fiercely loyal and loving relationship with her husband. At the same time.Vita was a prolific author, writing everything from poetry and biographies to bestselling novels-- even a long-running gardening column in The Observer. Vita is the only person ever to win the Hawthornden Prize for Poetry twice, and in 1946 was made a Companion of Honour for her contributions to English literature.
Vita and her husband Harold Nicolson created beautiful and original gardens at their home, Sissinghurst Castle. Sissinghurst Garden is now among the most famous and visited gardens in the world.
Vita Sackville-West at a Glance
Victoria Mary Sackville-West, The Hon Lady Nicolson, CH (9 March 1892 - 2 June 1962), best known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and poet. Her long narrative poem, The Land, won the Hawthornden Prize in 1927. She won it again, becoming the only writer to do so, in 1933 with her Collected Poems. She helped create her own gardens in Sissinghurst, Kent, which provide the backdrop to Sissinghurst Castle. She was famous for her exuberant aristocratic life, her strong marriage, and her passionate affairs with women, such as novelist Virginia Woolf.
Marvellous essay about falling in love with Vita and her work
Vita and her passions
Here is someone who understands how I feel about Vita Sackville-West! This essay is by author Barbara Samuel, found on her blog A Writer Afoot. Once you begin to learn about Vita, you only want more and more!
(Photo taken in Sissinghurst garden, by Barbara Samuel).
These are the tiles that spell out Vita's name on the staircase in the tower at Sissinghurst (mentioned in the essay above).
(Picture courtesy of Phillysound2).
Vita's Desk, Sissinghurst Tower
even one solitary little vase of a living flower may redeem it."
Vita Sackville-West
Online Bibliographies
"It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How
else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?"
Vita Sackville-West, Twelve Days, 1928.
Below are several different bibliographies for Vita-- if ever any writer needed a bibliography to keep her copious works straight, it is certainly she!
- Vita's works by genre
- An excellent bibliography by Suellen Cox, Head of Instruction and Information Services, Pollak Library, California State University Fullerton. Breaks Vita's works down by genre; also lists works about Vita.
- Knitting Circle Vita Sackville-West
- Vita Sackville-West Bibliography and short bio.
- Bibliography of books by or about Vita and/or Violet
- Phillysound2's book reviews on Amazon serve as a wonderful bibliography for learning about the affair between Vita and Violet Keppel Trefusis, and the impact it had on their lives. The reviewer explains what each book she reviews can teach you about different perspectives on the relationship. Phillysound2 has written well thought-out reviews on a multitude of books either by or about Vita and/or Violet.
An older Vita at her desk
Vita Sackville-West: A Bibliography
Wouldn't I love to have this!From the publisher: One of the most controversial authors of this century and a well known feminist, Vita Sackville-West, has acquired fame as a writer and devoted gardener. This is the most comprehensive bibliography on Sackville-West, which encompasses the great diversity of her writings which includes novels, such as The Edwardians and All Passion Spent and biographies like Pepita, which was about her grandmother who was a Spanish dancer. Along with the aforementioned novels and biographies, the authors have listed 61 books and pamphlets, 50 contributions to books, her published letters, 170 appearances in anthologies, 1,176 articles, short stories and poems, 366 broadcasts and 170 programs using her works.
Sackville-West's fame as a poet rests on her two masterpieces, The Land and The Garden. Here she combines her two great loves, gardening and writing. Her garden at Sissinghurst Castle is an artistic triumph attracting over 400,000 visitors a year.
This work has a beautifully written foreword by Nigel Nicolson, Sackville-West's son and author of Portrait of a Marriage. In it he states that this work, "is a literary biography . . . indefatigable research . . . an essential tool for librarians, booksellers, collectors, literary historians and many others."
Vita Sackville-West: A Bibliography
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Selected Writings
Vita Sackville-West: Selected Writings
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Vita Sackville-West.(Vita Sackville-West: Selected Writings)(Book Review): An article from: English Literature in Transition 1880-1920
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Novels by Vita Sackville-West
The Edwardians (Virago Modern Classics)
Originally published 1930.
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The Dragon In Shallow Waters
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Vita in her study
Poetry by Vita Sackville-West
Poems Of West And East (1917)
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COLLECTED POEMS: Volume One
Published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press (1933). Winner of the 1933 Hawthornden Prize, Sackville-West's second.
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Vita reading from her epic poem The Land
Vita Sackville-West reads from her poem The Land
Now something completely different. Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) reading from her most famous poem The Land. Recorded by Columbia in 1931 for the International Education Society. Wonderful voice and especially good sound for 1931. Check the Wikipedia entry for her. She lead an extraordinary life.
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Biographies by Vita Sackville-West
Saint Joan of Arc
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Ethel Smyth, a biography, by Christopher St. John. With additional chapters by V. Sackville-West and Kathleen Dale
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The Eagle and the Dove: A Study in Contrasts St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux
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Andrew Marvell
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DAUGHTER OF FRANCE: THE LIFE OF ANNE MARIE LOUISE D'ORLEANS DUCHESSE DE MONTPENSIER 1627-1693 LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE.
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Travel and/or Non-fiction Works by Vita Sackville-West
Passenger to Teheran (Tauris Parke Paperback)
Release Date: 05/01/2007
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English Country Houses (Writer's Britain Series)
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Berkeley Castle (Great Houses)
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The Marie Curie Hospital
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Twelve days: An account of a journey across the Bakhtiari Mountains in south-western Persia
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Correspondence: so many letters!
VITA AND HAROLD: THE LETTERS OF VITA SACKVILLE-WEST AND HAROLD NICOLSON, 1910-62
If you're going to read 'Portrait of a Marriage' you really must read this too - in order to really understand Vita and Harold's relationship.
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The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf
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Dearest Andrew: Letters from V. Sackville-West to Andrew Reiber, 1951-1962. Edited by Nancy MacKnight.
Vita and American Andrew Reiber carried on a friendship - via correspondence only - that lasted for many years, until Vita's death in 1962.
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Violet to Vita : The Letters of Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville-West, 1910-1921
Sadly, most of Vita's letters to Violet are lost - burned by the cuckolded Denys Trefusis. These are Violet's letter to Vita from the time of their "grand passion".
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Portrait of a Marriage
After Vita died, her son Nigel Nicolson (pictured, right) found a locked case in her rooms that contained Vita's account of her affair many years earlier with Violet Keppel Trefusis.In deference to his father, Nigel debated whether or not to make the story public. However, Nigel explains, "The conviction grew in me that she wanted her memoir to be published. She could have destroyed it. It presumed an audience."
He eventually did publish it, several years after Harold's death. Nicolson titled the book as he did because, in his words, "I added my own commentary, both on the affair and the later years of Vita's marriage until passion was (almost) spent, making it clear that having survived the crisis, their marriage, though physically aborted after the birth of their sons, was one of great happiness to both. I called the book Portrait of a Marriage, not, as Vita's contribution alone would have suggested, Portrait of an Affair, in order to clarify my motive."
Portrait of a Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson
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Harold Nicolson on Wikipedia
Sir Harold George Nicolson KCVO CMG (21 November 1886 - 1 May 1968) was an English diplomat, author, diarist and politician. He was the husband of writer Vita Sackville-West, their unusual relationship being described in their son's book, Portrait of a Marriage.
Their Letters
Vita and Harold's marriage, while unorthodox and at times tested nearly to the limit, remained a strong and enduring bond in their lives for almost fifty years. Their relationship is chronicled through thousands of letters to each other, again lovingly assembled by their son, Nigel Nicolson. The love of 'Mar' and "Hadji', as Vita and Harold called each other, is constantly palpable, even as they talked openly of her "muddles" and his affairs. Highly recommended and fascinating reading!
VITA AND HAROLD: THE LETTERS OF VITA SACKVILLE-WEST AND HAROLD NICOLSON, 1910-62
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The Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson manuscripts, letters and diaries: From Sissinghurst Castle, Kent, The Huntington Library, California, and other libraries (Britain's literary heritage)
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Vita and Harold: The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson
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Portrait of a Marriage, dramatized by the BBC
Portrait of a Marriage
Release Date: 05/30/2006
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![Portrait of a Marriage [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Netherlands ]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31zrfIXAGUL._SL75_.jpg)
Portrait of a Marriage [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Netherlands ]
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Video Clips from Portrait of a Marriage
This is how I was first introduced to Vita, although I have gone on to read almost anything and everything by her or about her!
The 'Grand Passion' 1918-1921
- The Antigonish Review:
- In name, a review of the book ''Violet to Vita: The Letters of Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville- West,'' but actually a very detailed overview of Violet and Vita's affair.
Vita and Violet Books
Portrait of a Marriage is as much about Vita and Violet as is is about Vita and Harold. The others here may be biographies of Violet Keppel Trefusis (right), but they go deeply into Violet's affair with Vita.
Portrait of a Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson
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Mrs Keppel and Her Daughter
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Violet Trefusis
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Fictionalized Accounts of Vita and Violet's Affair...
... by Vita and Violet (and Virginia)
The third fictionalized depiction of the affair is as a section of Orlando, Virginia Woolf's "love letter to Vita." Orlando depicts Vita, while Princess Sasha is Violet.
Broderie Anglaise
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Broderie Anglaise
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Orlando: A Biography
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Biographies of Vita Sackville-West
Vita the Life of Vita Sackville West
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Vita : The Life of V. Sackville-West
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Vita's Other World: A Gardening Biography of Vita Sackville-West
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Orlando: A Biography
Virginia Woolf's "love letter to Vita"
Orlando: A Biography
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Orlando (Annotated): A Biography
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Orlando - A Biography
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Orlando (Unabridged Audio Book)
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Orlando: A Biography
novel Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf.
Illustrations in the First Editions of Orlando: A Biography
Orlando Criticism and Analysis
- Orlando: A Biography - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Orlando is a novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on 11 October 1928. It is generally considered one of the most accessible novels by Virginia Woolf, and is one of the most influential books written by a female author, mixing fiction with biography.
- Journal of Modern Literature, Summer 2006
- Situating Orlando within a matrix of biographical, cultural, and literary concerns, this essay contends that Virginia Woolf 's peculiar and fantastical "biography" of Vita Sackville-West effects a double compensation. By attending to the tensions between the real and the fictional/fantastic and the public and private, I suggest that the text restores lost loves and lost objects to both Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf....
- Literary Encyclopedia: Orlando: A Biography
- Full of complexity, strangeness and subversive humour, Orlando asks important questions about the nature of genre, gender, sexuality, society and history. It is also very funny. Orlando is "inspired" by the life of Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962). The novel is dedicated to her and she appears in three of its illustrations ("Orlando on her Return to England", "Orlando About the Year 1840" and "Orlando at the Present Time")....
Orlando the Film
British filmmaker Sally Potter made the film adaptation of Woolf's novel in 1993. While it follows some of the contours of Woolf's novel, it is in fact a further contemplation of the novel rather than an adaptation of it. Think of it as the analogue to a piece of music that is a "variation on a theme," rather than a filmed version of the novel. Nevertheless, the film is worth watching even though it does not replace reading the book, which is much funnier. (Paraphrased from Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography (1928), by Professor Catherine Lavender, The Department of History, The College of Staten Island of The City University of New York).
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Orlando [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - Australia ]
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Orlando: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Release Date: 06/08/1993
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Clips from the 1992 film version of Orlando
Vita and Virginia Woolf
Vita's affair with Virginia Woolf (right) was perhaps her second-most famous extra-marital liasion.
- Virginia and Vita: Explorations of their relationship viewed through the novel of Virginia Woolf's Orlando
- It has been said the novel Orlando is the longest love-letter ever written; a celebration of the bond between women. The relationship between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West....
- Virginia and Vita
- Virginia to Vita (9 Oct 1927): You know that bloody book which Dadie and Leonard extort, drop by drop, from my breast? Fiction, or some title to that effect [Phases of Fiction]. I couldn't screw a word from me; and at last dropped my head in my hands:
dipped my pen in the ink, and wrote these words, as if automatically, on a clean sheet: Orlando: A Biography. No sooner had I done this than my body was flooded with rapture and my brain with ideas.... But listen; suppose Orlando turns out to be Vita; and its all about you and the lusts of your flesh and the lure of your heart.... - Vita & Virginia-- Two Reviews
- Two marvellous-- and very different-- reviews of "Vita and Virginia" by playwright Eileen Atkins. Both explain Vita and Virginia's relationship, and their differences.
- THEATER REVIEW; Vanessa Redgrave and Eileen Atkins Bring 20 Years of Letters to Life
- "Vita and Virginia". . . has two fascinating characters, the British writers Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. It has two superb actresses, Vanessa Redgrave and Eileen Atkins, to portray them. And it has a wealth of material to draw upon: the letters, prickly with intelligence and passion, that the women exchanged for some 20 years, beginning in the early 1920's, when Vita first took a fancy to the older author.
- Woolf in the World: A Pen and a Press of Her Own: Orlando
- A wonderful link on Orlando showing the proof where Virginia struggles with how to address Vita in her dedication, and one of the book's illustrations: Orlando on her return to England (actually a portrait of Vita at the time she won the Hawthornden prize).
Virginia Woolf's Description of Vita
Originally I had posted only a link to this quote from Virginia Woolf's diary (21 December 1925), but her description of Vita begs a full write-up here:Vita for three days at Long Barn, from which Leonard and I returned yesterday. These Sapphists love women; friendship is never untinged with amorosity. In short, my fears and refrainings, my 'impertinence,' my usual self-consciousness in intercourse with people who mayn't want me and so on--were all, as L. said, sheer fudge; and partly thanks to him (he made me write) I wound up this wounded and stricken year in great style. I like her and being with her and the splendour--she shines in the grocer's shop in Sevenoaks with a candle lit radiance, stalking on legs like beech trees, pink glowing, grape clustered, pearl hung. That is the secret of her glamour, I suppose. Anyhow she found me incredibly dowdy. No woman cared less for personal appearance. No one put on things in the way I did. Yet so beautiful, etc. What is the effect of all this on me? Very mixed. There is her maturity and full breastedness; her being so much in full sail on the high tides, where I am coasting down backwaters; her capacity I mean to take the floor in any company, to represent her country, to visit Chatsworth to control silver, servants, chow dogs; her motherhood (but she is a little cold and off-hand with her boys); her being in short (what I have never been) a real woman. Then there is some voluptuousness about her; the grapes are ripe; and not reflective. No. In brain and insight she is not as highly organised as I am. But then she is aware of this and so lavishes on me the maternal protection which, for some reason, is what I have always most wished from everyone. What L. gives me, and Nessa gives me and Vita, in her more clumsy external way, tries to give me. For of course, mingled with all this glamour, grape clusters and pearl necklaces, there is something loose fitting. How much, for example, shall I really miss her when she is motoring across the desert?"
Vita and Virginia Books
The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf
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Vita and Virginia: The Work and Friendship of V. Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf
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Vita and Virginia (Acting Edition)
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Desiring Women: The Partnership of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West
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Vita's Homes
Knole House
Vita grew up at Knole House (the largest private home in England), with all its privilege and splendor. The family lost Knole temporarily due to legal wranglings by distant relations, but at last won the legal battle and triumphantly returned. In the end, though, Knole House was lost to Vita due to her gender. When her father died, Vita could not inherit because she was a woman. Knole and the ultimate loss of the home she loved shaped Vita's life.
Long Barn
Long Barn, the home she and Harold shared early in their marriage, was the place where the gardener in Vita came to life. She and Harold worked out their gardening styles (and early gardening mistakes) here. Their friend Edward Luytens helped in the design of the garden at Long Barn.
SissinghurstFinally Sissinghurst! The crumbling Elizabethan manor house that Vita and her son Nigel found on a rainy day in 1930 was to be the family's home for the rest of Vita's life. She wrote from her rooms in the brick tower, and the family lived in the various parts of the estate that were intact. Although the family had residences in London at various points, Vita could never stray far from Sissinghurst, the fabulous gardens that she and Harold created there, and the English countryside she loved so well.
Vita's Homes
- English Stately Homes - Knole House
- The Heritage Trail, Stately Homes & Country Houses of England and the British Isles
- National Trust | Knole
- One of the great treasure houses of England set in a magnificent deer park. Has a superb collection of C17th Stuart furniture, tapestries, textiles & portraits. Birthplace of novelist and poet Vita Sackville-West.
- Knole House - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Details of Knole House from Wikipedia.
- English Manor Houses - Sissinghurst Castle
- Sissinghurst Castle - The Heritage Trail, manor houses of England and the British Isles
- National Trust | Sissinghurst Castle Garden
- One of the world's most celebrated gardens, the creation of Vita Sackville-West and her husband Sir Harold Nicolson.
- Botanic Garden of Smith College: Knole-Sissinghurst
- Knole, ancestral home of the Sackvilles, where Vita Sackville-West was born. Woolf used it as the setting for her novel Orlando, whose main character is based on Vita Sackville-West....
Sissinghurst Today
Although owned by the National Trust and open to visitors, the estate is still inhabited by the Nicolson family-- Vita's granddaughter (Nigel's daughter), author Juliet Nicolson, lives there, sleeping in her grandmother's bedroom and writing in her grandfather's study.At Home in a Bloomsbury Fantasy: New York Times
Sissnghurst Today
- Tension at Sissinghurst as Poirot meets River Cottage | Opinion | The First Post
- "Am I going mad? Don't answer that. Merely clarify one thing. Is BBC4's new Sunday night show Sissinghurst a fly-on-the wall docu-series about the various ways in which the National Trust resists the pressure for Vita Sackville West's beloved Kentish castle and gardens to be hauled into River Cottage-ville with their own sustainable veg plot and sheep farm?"
- The past has gone - so bury it - Telegraph
- Instead of re-creating great gardens of former years, we should look to the future, argues Tim Richardson.
"I think I can guess what Sackville-West's management plan would be, were she to come back today: she would rip it up - tea rooms, shop, interpretation centre and all. She would have hated it." - 'Powerfully evocative' family history wins Ondaatje prize
- Adam Nicolson takes award for Sissinghurst, an Unfinished History a memoir of his family's ancestral home.
Tour Sissinghurst on DVD!
The Great Gardens of England
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Guides to Knole and Sissinghurst
Sissinghurst Castle: An illustrated history
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Sissinghurst Castle
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Knole (Kent) (National Trust Guidebooks)
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Amazingly Beautiful Photos of Sissinghurst and Knole
These tremendous photos of two of Vita's homes (Sissinghurst and Knole) were found on Flickr and were taken by photographer Funky_Slug, aka Brian Stevenson. Please check out Funky_Slug's other photos on Flickr!
Sissinghurst Castle Oast - Kent
Knole House - Kent
Sissinghurst Castle - Kent
Knole Park - Kent
Sissinghurst Castle - Kent
Writings about her homes and her family
Pepita.
Vita's biography of her maternal grandmother, the Spanish dancer Pepita, reads like a novel-- but as Vita reminds you during the narrative, not one bit of the story is fiction. The real story is interesting enough!
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Knole and the Sackvilles
Vita's history of her family and the family seat, Knole House.
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Sissinghurst
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Gardening and Garden Writing
Vita Sackville-West
Vita and her husband Harold Nicolson were consummate gardeners who designed unique and important gardens at their homes at Long Barn and Sissinghurst. Nearly half a century after Vita's death, Sissinghurst remains one of the most visited gardens in the world.
- Great British Gardens: Great Garden Designers: Vita Sackville-West
- Now acclaimed as the embodiment of modern British gardening tradition, Sissinghurst is Sackville-West and Nicolson's enduring legacy, a haven of peace and beauty.
- Long Barn and Sissinghurst
- Sissinghurst was not the first garden to be created by Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Harold Nicolson. This article is about their gardening background before they bought Sissinghurst Castle.
- Tour UK: Gardens in Kent: Sissinghurst Castle Garden
- Very good overview of important aspects of the Sissinghurst's gardens.
- Sissinghurst Castle Garden of Vita Sackville West
- A monument to Vita Sackville West which captures the heart of every garden-lover
- Sissinghurst Castle Garden
- Sissinghurst Castle Garden - a delightful garden designed by Vita sackville-West in the 1930's. The site contains stunning digital photography of the entire garden.
- Vita Sackville-West, GardenHistoryInfo.com
- Informative articles on the history of gardening and garden restoration
~ biography of gardener Vita Sackville-West - Vita Sackville-West, GardenHistoryInfo.com
- Informative articles on the history of gardening and garden restoration
~ biography of gardener Vita Sackville-West
Gardening Books by VS-W
For he's bewitched forever who has seen,
Not with his eyes but with his vision,
Spring Flow down the woods and stipple leaves with sun."
Vita Sackville-West
In Your Garden
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More for your Garden
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In Your Garden Again
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The Illustrated Garden Book
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V. Sackville-West's Garden Book
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More gardening writings by Vita
Joy of Gardening
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For more on Sissinghurst Gardens...
...here's a wonderful lens by lensmaster makingamark!-
Sissinghurst Castle Garden - a great garden
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Sissinghurst Castle Garden is probably the most famous 20th century garden in the UK and is an English Heritage Historic Garden Grade I. It's also currently the subject of a BBC Documentary series. Find out more about this internationally renowned a...
Gardening Books About VS-W's Gardens
Gardening at Sissinghurst
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Sissinghurst Castle Garden (Kent) (National Trust Guidebooks)
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Planting Schemes from Sissinghurst (Garden inspirations)
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Sissinghurst: Portrait of a Garden
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Sissinghurst: The Making of a Garden
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Vita and Harold
Beautiful Autumn at Sissinghurst Poster
Links to Vita Pages and Websites
- Vita Sackville-West, A Biographical Note
- A brief, but very good biography of Vita, that puts her literary works on a timeline with the events of her life.
- Vita Sackville-West bio at Spartacus Educational
- A short biography.
- Isle of Lesbos: Vita Sackville-West's Letters
- Letters from Vita Sackville-West, two to Virginia Woolf and one to Violet Trefusis.
- Excerpts from Long Life, by Nigel Nicolson
- Nigel Nicolson's memoirs, including much about his parents, and his choice to publish Portrait of a Marriage.
- National Portrait Gallery, London
- List of portraits and (thumbnail views of them) for Victoria Mary ('Vita') Sackville-West, who was the sitter in 17 portraits in the Gallery. Very interesting site to visit, as there are several less-commonly-seen images of Vita later in life.
- The Bloomsbury Group: Artists, Writers and Thinkers: Vita Sackville West
- Brief bio, a few quotes, and an audio of Janet McTeer (who played Vita in the BBC's Portrait of a Marriage) reading from Vita's In Your Garden.
- glbtq Literature: Sackville-West, Vita
- Although her letters make frequent--usually cryptic--allusions to her sexual relationships with women (and Victoria Glendinning fills out the story with rich detail in her 1983 biography), Sackville-West wrote directly and at length about her sexual identity only once, in a secret journal in 1920, discovered after her death in 1962 by her son Nigel Nicolson and published as part of Portrait of a Marriage in 1973.
- ViewImages, Getty Images: Vita Sackville-West
- This is a must-see link, with three pages of very rare photos of Vita throughout her life. (The photos cannot be downloaded or reproduced in any way, so be sure to check out this link, as you won't see them anywhere else!)
- Books and Writers: Vita Sackville-West
- Short biography and selected bibliography; some quotes. Vita (Victoria Mary) Sackville-West (1892-1962) English poet and novelist, born into an old aristocratic family....
- thePeerage.com - Hon. Victoria Mary Sackville-West
- A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain. It's interesting to trace Vita's family backwards and forwards. Her great grandchildren are now in their 20s.
- Vita Sackville-West on LibraryThing
- Vita's author page on LibraryThing, where you can catalog your books online
Jodhpurs and pearls
Vita Items on eBay
As you can imagine, what's available on eBay varies wildly from day to day-- sometimes 21st century paperbacks not worth anything, but sometimes real gems. This module updates automatically each day, so check back often to see what you can find!
Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand by
Final Resting Place
Vita died of cancer on 2 June 1962, at home at Sissinghurst. Her ashes, fittingly, were placed in the inkwell she had used at Long Barn, and they rest beneath the Sackville Family Chapel, St. Michael and All Angels Church, Withyham, East Sussex.
The Sackville Chapel, St Michaels & All Angels, Withyham
The Chapel has, fortunately, been less restored than the church, though the original floor of black and white marble squares has disappeared, but the 17th century iron railings, probably from a local forge, still remain, as does the gold and azure ceiling....
Blogging Vita
- Mercenary Gardens
- March 9, 2008: Orlando as Gardener.
How most aristocratic families of the period had male gardeners to do their work, but Vita sang the praises of doing all the chores of gardening oneself. - Maitresse: Essays and observations on books, culture, life and art in the City of Light
- February 25, 2008: Vita vs Virginia
excerpt: "The mind that produced Seducers in Ecuador could be accused of many things but dullness is not one of them."
October 01, 2007: Violet Trefusis and Vita Sackville-West: the mini-series
excerpt: "...while trolling YouTube I found the 1992 BBC mini-series "Portrait of a Marriage," based on Vita's son Nigel's book, which stars Janet McTeer (who sounds incredibly, and appropriately so, like Tilda Swinton in the film adaptation of Orlando) and Cathryn Harrison." - Home & Interior Design: Country Inns: The Manor Borne
- Home & Interior Design
April 15, 2008: Country Inns: The Manor Borne
The exteriors are elegant and the gardens unbelievably lush. Come along for an authentic tour through real English country homes."There is nothing quite like the English country house anywhere else in the world," wrote Vita Sackville-West. "It may be large, it may be small; it may be palatial, it may be manorial....
Recent News About Vita
- MLA News Press Release
- From the MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Council of the UK) News: Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst Castle study saved for nation (17 October 2007)
- Growing Roses the Sissinghurst Way (Telegraph.co.uk)
- Sissinghurst's roses are the best in the country. Now's the time to learn how it's done, says Sarah Raven
- Letters cast a new light on famous lesbian affair
- Bitchy pen portraits and moving tributes found in unpublished correspondence between the poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West and an aspiring young writer.
Getting to know Vita....
This lens is but an overview of the life of a very complex person, and one couldn't pretend to know her, the essence of her, from reading this web page.If your interest in Vita has been piqued, I encourage you to follow as many of the links here as you can, and also to read, read, read! There is so much material authored by the woman herself, and so much material written about the woman, that you'll have months or even years to get to know this fascinating person.
If you have enjoyed this lens, please help boost my lensrank by rating it with the stars at the top of this page, and/or bookmarking it to your favorite social bookmarking sites.
Also, I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please feel free to sign the guestbook!
Share your impressions of Vita Sackville-West
Had you heard of Vita before visiting this lens? How did you discover her? What do you like best about her? Share your impressions of Vita Sackville-West:
WhitePineLane wrote...
in reply to makingamark Absolutely! It's now featured! It's a wonderful lens. I envy you having been there.... Thanks for featuring mine!
Posted June 24, 2009
makingamark wrote...
A great lens - well researched and very nicely documented.
I've now FEATURED your lens in "Sissinghurst Castle Garden - a great garden" (http://www.squidoo.com/sissinghurst): Maybe mine could be a useful addition to this lens?
Posted June 24, 2009
telltilly wrote...
Thank you for this great lens. I have been to Sissinghurst a couple of times and loved it and what she set up there.
Vita Sackville-West is fascinating
Posted June 14, 2009
DarylRobidoux
nice lens
Posted June 08, 2009
Janusz wrote...
Thank you for sharing this wonderful lens!... How could I not Bless this masterpiece :)
Posted April 14, 2009
Where in the world are people checking out this lens?
Worldwide hits to this lens since September 7, 2008!About the Lensmaster
Lensmaster WhitePineLane, aka Kimberly Adams, has been a member since December 16 2005, has rated 903 lenses, favorited 205, and has created 60 lenses from scratch. This member's top-ranked page is "Olivia". See all my lenses
My Bio
Crazy about her husband, her kids and her corgis! Passionate eBayer, addicted Squidooer, newbie blogger, and erstwhile SAHM. 
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