Book description
Vita Sackville-West's brilliant first novel, published in 1919, at the
height of her stormy affair with Violet Trefusis, is acclaimed as a
masterpiece.
The story of Ruth Pennistan, on the one hand a conventional farmer's
daughter, born and brought up in Kent, on the other a mysterious gypsy
figure, trapped against her will in a drama of love and tragedy. A
heroine who mirrored the passions and contradictions of Vita's own life
and character.
'Alive with smouldering passion and passages of real beauty . . .
unquestionably a novel of unusual power' Daily Telegraph
The Hon. Lady Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West, was an English poet,
novelist and gardener. She was famous for her exuberant aristocratic
life, her strong marriage to Harold Nicolson, her passionate
relationships with women and her gardens at Sissinghurst Castle, Kent.
Sackville-West's long narrative poem, The Land, won the Hawthornden
Prize in 1927, and her Collected Poems won the prize again in 1933. Her
best-known novels are The Edwardians (1930) and All Passion Spent
(1931). Both titles were reissued alongside her earlier novel, Challenge
(1923), by Virago in Spring 2011.
In 1946 Sackville-West was made a Companion of Honour for her services
to literature. The following year she began a weekly column in the
Observer called In your Garden. In 1948 she became a founder member of
the National Trust's garden committee.
Sissinghurst Castle is now owned by the National Trust and the garden
Vita Sackville-West created there is open to the public. It is one of
the most visited gardens in England.
