Vita Sackville-West (1892 – 1962), the British author known for All Passion Spent and The Edwardians (as well as for her great friendship with Virginia Woolf) was nearly equally known for her passion for gardening and garden design. Enjoy the selection of quotes by Vita Sackville-West on gardens and gardening in this post — they’re wonderful metaphors for life itself!
The gardens at Sissinghurst, the home she shared with Harold Nicolson, are masterful. Though she considered herself an amateur, she remains a respected name in garden design.
Vita had a voice that was at once authoritative yet never bossy, often acknowledging that the garden can become the master of its caretaker, rather than the other way around. Something that always comes through is her passion for gardens, gardening, and beauty in bloom. According to The Telegraph in a recent appraisal of Vita’s gardening legacy:
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In the American colonies and early days of the Republic, for a woman to dare enter public discourse was a radical act of rebellion. Following is an introduction to six of the most prominent early American women writers, all of whom deserve to be rediscovered and read.
To write and be published at a time when women had few legal or economic rights was just short of miraculous. To avoid censure, some occasionally wrote under pseudonyms, while others used their own names, consequences be damned!
In 1650, The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America, a collection of poems by Anne Bradstreet, was the first publication in the colonies. From then on, women who wrote were criticized for being unwomanly and going against God’s teachings. Read More→
George Eliot, the chosen pen name of Mary Ann Evans (1819 – 1880), was an esteemed Victorian-era British author. Her writing was politically and socially perceptive and inventive.
Middlemarch, The Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner are considered some of the finest and most important literary works in British literature. In addition to these and other novels, George Eliot also wrote poems, short stories, translations, and essays.
Middlemarch (1871) follows the tale of Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate, two characters destined to enter marriages that are not only unfulfilling, but also conflict with their personal aspirations. Read More→
Aphra Behn (1640 – 1689) is a forerunner in English literary history in more ways than one; she is not only the first professional woman writer, she is also an important innovator in the form of the novel.
Using the epistolary form of Lettres Portugaises as a model and combining it with elements of the drama, with Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister she created the first true epistolary novel.
In Oroonoko she used a narrative voice that combined proximity to her readers with an unusual wealth of detail, while the plot itself involves one of the first examples of the concept of the “noble savage” in literature. Read More→
Anne Bradstreet (1612 – 1672) was one of the most prominent early American poets, and the first writer in the American colonies to be published. Following is a selection of five poems by Anne Bradstreet, most written in the 1650s and 1660s.
At a time when it was considered unacceptable for women to write, Anne rejected the prevailing ideas of women’s inferiority. She endured criticism, not for the quality of her work, but that she, a woman, dared to write. Read More→
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (August 30, 1797 – February 1, 1851) born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, is renowned for her classic thriller, Frankenstein. Her work crossed several genres, including essays, biographies, short stories, and dramas.
Born in London, England, she was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft (early feminist best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman) and philosopher and political writer William Godwin.
She and her half-sister, Fanny Imlay (Wollstonecraft’s daughter from an affair she had with an American entrepreneur and adventurer) were raised mainly by her father; her mother, the early feminist and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, died days after giving birth to her. Read More→
Maud Hart Lovelace (April 25, 1892 – March 11, 1980) was an American author best known for the nostalgic Betsy-Tacy series of books for girls.
Born and raised in Mankato, Minnesota, she enjoyed a happy childhood filled with friends, culture, and a loving family. As soon as she could hold a pencil, she began writing stories and poems.
Maud Hart started her college studies at the University of Minnesota but shortly thereafter had to withdraw when she was diagnosed with appendicitis. More than willing to take a break from her studies and continue her recuperation at her maternal grandmother’s home, she escaped to the sun and warmth of California to rest and recover. Read More→
Tillie Olsen (January 14, 1912 – January 1, 2007) was an American author of fiction and nonfiction whose body of work was small but influential, drawing upon her personal experiences.
Her writings spoke to the struggles of women and working-class families, placing her in the canon of second-wave feminist literature. While her birth was never recorded officially, it’s been determined she was born in either 1912 or 1913.
Born Tillie Lerner in Omaha, Nebraska, she was the second child of Ida Goldberg and Sam Lerner, Russian-Jewish immigrants. Her father, a laborer, was the Secretary of Nebraska’s Socialist party. Her parents’ socialist views and activism impacted Olsen’s childhood and influenced her later life. Read More→
