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May 7, 2020 2:39 PM Subscribe
The Fabulous Forgotten Life of Vita Sackville-West.
Vita was as famous for her affairs as for her writing.
Whilest at school she began an affair with Rosamund Grosvenor before starting a long affair with Violet Trefusis visting Italy together in 1908.
Vita was a prolific writer Scroll down writing eight full-length novels and five plays by the time she was Eighteen, and continued to be so.
In 1913 she married the diplomat Harold Nicholson but both continued their affairs - Harold with his boyfriends, (He was never a passionate lover. To him sex was as incidental, and about as pleasurable, as a quick visit to a picture-gallery between trains), and Vita had a short affair with Geoffrey Scott before continuing with Violet again with trips to France.
“O darling, aren’t you glad you aren’t me?” wrote Violet to her pined-for lover in the summer of 1921.
Then in 1922 Vita met Virginia Woolfe who later wrote to her - "Throw over your man, and come to me,".
Their Letters became legendary.
Later there was her affair with Mary Garman and with Hilda Matheson, head of the BBC Talks Department who Vox calls The Forgotten Queer Woman Who Revolutionized Radio.
In 1931, Sackville-West was in a brief ménage à trois with journalist Evelyn Irons and Irons's lover, Olive Rinder.
Irons had interviewed Vita after her novel The Edwardians had become a best-seller.
After the death of her Mother in 1936 Vita became more of a recluse dedicating her time together with Harold into the development of Sissinghurst and its now-famous gardens as told to house and garden magazine.
(FPP inspired by Artw.).
Vita was as famous for her affairs as for her writing.
Whilest at school she began an affair with Rosamund Grosvenor before starting a long affair with Violet Trefusis visting Italy together in 1908.
Vita was a prolific writer Scroll down writing eight full-length novels and five plays by the time she was Eighteen, and continued to be so.
In 1913 she married the diplomat Harold Nicholson but both continued their affairs - Harold with his boyfriends, (He was never a passionate lover. To him sex was as incidental, and about as pleasurable, as a quick visit to a picture-gallery between trains), and Vita had a short affair with Geoffrey Scott before continuing with Violet again with trips to France.
“O darling, aren’t you glad you aren’t me?” wrote Violet to her pined-for lover in the summer of 1921.
Then in 1922 Vita met Virginia Woolfe who later wrote to her - "Throw over your man, and come to me,".
Their Letters became legendary.
Later there was her affair with Mary Garman and with Hilda Matheson, head of the BBC Talks Department who Vox calls The Forgotten Queer Woman Who Revolutionized Radio.
In 1931, Sackville-West was in a brief ménage à trois with journalist Evelyn Irons and Irons's lover, Olive Rinder.
Irons had interviewed Vita after her novel The Edwardians had become a best-seller.
After the death of her Mother in 1936 Vita became more of a recluse dedicating her time together with Harold into the development of Sissinghurst and its now-famous gardens as told to house and garden magazine.
(FPP inspired by Artw.).
"Alma, tell us..."
posted by Windopaene at 3:57 PM on May 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by Windopaene at 3:57 PM on May 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
Forgotten? Less so than most.
posted by homerica at 4:29 PM on May 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by homerica at 4:29 PM on May 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
Only distantly related to the differently scandalous Sackville-Bagginses.
posted by notoriety public at 4:58 PM on May 7, 2020 [21 favorites]
posted by notoriety public at 4:58 PM on May 7, 2020 [21 favorites]
Given that she's been immortalized by a pseudo-biographical novel, a film based on that, a biography by her son, a mini-series based on THAT (love this adaptation) - and was the very first panel a craft group I was in started in our project on queer women and trans people - yeah, I'm a big Vita fan, but she's not exactly forgotten.
Hilda Matheson - now she's not someone I've come across before, and sounds both fascinating and super important. She now has a wikipedia page.
posted by jb at 6:50 PM on May 7, 2020 [6 favorites]
Hilda Matheson - now she's not someone I've come across before, and sounds both fascinating and super important. She now has a wikipedia page.
posted by jb at 6:50 PM on May 7, 2020 [6 favorites]
The 2018 film Vita and Virginia was extraordinary and compelling. I highly recommend it.
posted by rednikki at 6:56 PM on May 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by rednikki at 6:56 PM on May 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
Seems a good thread to mention the musical awesomeness that is Vita and the Woolf.
posted by xedrik at 8:09 PM on May 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by xedrik at 8:09 PM on May 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
Any relation to Camellia Sackville?
posted by fairmettle at 1:01 AM on May 8, 2020
posted by fairmettle at 1:01 AM on May 8, 2020
As to the writing - the novels are, to be charitable, of their time. The garden writing, however, that should survive. Which might have come as a surprise to her. The same phenomenon is true of Beverley Nichols,(1898-1983) who wrote piles of stuff in many genres, but what remains once the tide runs out is the garden writing. Highly recommended (though at times risks bumping up against twee).
"Long experience has taught me that people who do not like geraniums have something morally unsound about them. Sooner or later you will find them out; you will discover that they drink, or steal books, or speak sharply to cats. Never trust a man or a woman who is not passionately devoted to geraniums."
posted by BWA at 5:56 AM on May 8, 2020
"Long experience has taught me that people who do not like geraniums have something morally unsound about them. Sooner or later you will find them out; you will discover that they drink, or steal books, or speak sharply to cats. Never trust a man or a woman who is not passionately devoted to geraniums."
posted by BWA at 5:56 AM on May 8, 2020
Metafilter: “largely a picturesque figure of scandal and camp tragicomedy.”
This jejune rediscovery of authors from a previous century and proclaiming them to be "Forgotten" must stop. It highlights the superficiality of modern culture. One can only compare announcing that "not many people know" that Great Gatsby was a book before it was a movie. Not many people know it was a movie with Robert Redford before it was a redundant and unimportant movie with Leonardo De Caprio. But the 1970s Gatsby was not forgotten by the people that matter.
I read about the formula for the potpourri of Knole recently--"the recipe was created more than 200 years ago specifically for Knole, using plants grown in its gardens." I own The Edwardians, and when I modify the back of my hairstyle, I too have the curious, lost expression of every woman doing the same.
/channeling my opinionated Edwardian matriarch, a la Maggie Smith
posted by ohshenandoah at 4:05 PM on May 12, 2020
This jejune rediscovery of authors from a previous century and proclaiming them to be "Forgotten" must stop. It highlights the superficiality of modern culture. One can only compare announcing that "not many people know" that Great Gatsby was a book before it was a movie. Not many people know it was a movie with Robert Redford before it was a redundant and unimportant movie with Leonardo De Caprio. But the 1970s Gatsby was not forgotten by the people that matter.
I read about the formula for the potpourri of Knole recently--"the recipe was created more than 200 years ago specifically for Knole, using plants grown in its gardens." I own The Edwardians, and when I modify the back of my hairstyle, I too have the curious, lost expression of every woman doing the same.
/channeling my opinionated Edwardian matriarch, a la Maggie Smith
posted by ohshenandoah at 4:05 PM on May 12, 2020
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posted by geek anachronism at 3:26 PM on May 7, 2020 [2 favorites]