Vita Sackville-West
Lady Victoria Mary Nicolson (née Sackville-West, 9 March 1892 - 2 June 1962), best known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, and garden designer.
Early Life and Education
Vita grew up in the Kentish countryside at Knole, the Sackville-West's family estate. Her mother was Victoria Sackville-West, Baroness Sackville, and her father was Lionel Sackville-West, 3rd Baron Sackville.
Career
Sackville-West was an accomplished writer and received many accolades throughout her lifetime. One of them includes the Hawthornden Prize for Poetry for her narrative poem The Land, published in 1926.
As a garden designer, she also published several books on gardening.
Private Life
In 1913, Sackville-West married Sir Harold Nicolson, a diplomat later turned novelist, with whom she shares her two sons, Benedict and Nigel Nicolson. They had an open marriage and both of them had affairs with same-sex lovers. Her son Nigel even wrote about his parent's relationship based on Sackville-West's journals and letters in Portrait of a Marriage [1] (1973). Most notably among those lovers of Sackville-West was the author Virginia Woolf. The two first met in December 1922 at a
Sackville-West even served as the inspiration for Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando, a story that spans centuries and follows the titular and ambiguously gendered character named Orlando.
She was associated with legendary Bloomsbury Group and one of the bestselling authors of Hogarth Press, the publishing house owned by Virginia and Leonard Woolf.
In 1948, she was made a Companion of Honour.
Death, Legacy, and Popular Culture
Sackville-West died on 2 June 1962, aged 70, at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent after battling with abdominal cancer. Her works and cultural contributions have made a lasting impression on both the literary canon and popular culture. The biographical romantic drama film Vita & Virginia [2] (2018) by Chanya Button is among one of the more recent references to the iconic duo in contemporary pop culture.
Selected Works
- The Heir: A Love Story Knole and the Sackvilles (1922)
- Challenge (1923)
- Seducers in Ecuador (1924)
- The Land (1926)
- The Edwardians (1930)
- All Passion Spent (1931)
Sources
- Sproles, Karyn Z. Desiring Women: The Partnership of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, University of Toronto Press, 2006.
- "Vita Sackville-West." Encyclopedia Britannica, last edited 3 Jun. 2024, Britannica. www.britannica.com/biography/V-Sackville-West. Accessed 30 Jun. 2024.
References
- ↑ Nicolson, Nigel. Portrait of a Marriage, Atheneum, 1973.
- ↑ Vita & Virginia. Directed by Chanya Button, performances by Gemma Arterton, Elizabeth Debicki, Rupert Penry-Jones, Peter Ferdinando, Thunderbird Releasing, 2018.