Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962), English born poet and novelist, wrote of her life in the Kent countryside. Her first novel was published in 1909 when she was only seventeen years old. Sackville-West is known for her private life as well; she was bisexual and had many affairs with women, including Virginia Woolf. She enjoyed an open marriage with Harold George Nicolson, a writer and politician who was also bisexual. In creating an unusual family, including two successful sons, Nigel and Benedict, the couple was far ahead of time.

Vita Sackville -West focused mainly on fiction, but also put her passion for  gardening into essays and columns. The gardens she and her husband designed at their home, Sissinghurst Castle, are still visited and admired today.

Major Works

• The Edwardians
• All Passion Spent
• Saint Joan of Arc
• Twelve Days in Persia
• In Your Garden
• Passenger to Teheran

More Information

• Vita Sackville-West Wikipedia
• Letters from Vita Sackville-West

Visit Vita Sackville-West’s home

• Sissinghurst Castle - Weald of Kent, UK

Vita Sackville-West Quotes

“Among the many problems which beset the novelist, not the least weighty is the choice of the moment at which to begin his novel.”

“The writer catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming. Growth of the soul, growth of the mind.”

“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? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone.”

“It is very necessary to have makers of beauty left in a world seemingly bent on making the most evil ugliness” (Country Notes, 1940)