Vita Sackville-West(1892-1962)

Victoria Mary Sackville-West was born on 9th March 1892 at Knole in Kent, her family's ancestral home. Her family was both aristocratic, (they held the title of Earl of Dorset), and literary. Two of her ancestors, Thomas Sackville (1536-1608), and Charles Sackville (1638-1706) were distinguished poets. Vita, as she was known to her friends and family, was educated at home. She became a prolific writer, and her published work spans a number of different genres. Her literary output includes family history, ('Knole and Sackvilles', which was first published in 1922), and verse. Her poem 'The Land' won the Hawthornden Prize in 1927. She married the writer and diplomat Harold Nicolson on 1st October 1913. They had two sons, Ben, born 6th August 1914, and Nigel, born 19th January 1917. In 1930 Vita and Harold bought Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, where they created their famous garden. Vita was also romantically linked to Violet Trefusis. The novelist Virginia Woolf was a close friend of Vita's and Virginia used Vita as the inspiration for the eponymous protagonist of Woolf's 1928 novel 'Orlando'. Vita's own novels include 'The Edwardians' (1930) and 'All Passion Spent' (1931). 'All Passion Spent' was dramatized for television by the BBC in 1986. In this dramatization Wendy Hiller played the part of Lady Slane. Vita's last novel, 'No Signposts in the Sea', was published in 1961 and takes the form of a journal written by Edmund Carr, a Fleet Street journalist taking an ocean cruise. Vita Sackville-West died at Sissinghurst on 2nd June 1962.