Vita Sackville-West was born, 1892, at Knole House in Sevenoaks Kent; the then laws of primogeniture prevented her from inheriting the estate on the death of her father, and Knole House and the title instead passed to her uncle Charles Sackville-West, (1870—1962), 4th Baronet, the cousin of her mother, Victoria, also a Sackville-West, through her father Lionel, the 2nd Baronet, labeled however as "illegitimate", but married to her cousin, the 3rd Baronet Lionel Edward.

The loss of Knole would affect her for the rest of her life: of the signing in 1947 of documents relinquishing any claim on the property, part of its transition to the National Trust, she wrote that "the signing... nearly broke my heart, putting my signature to what I regarded as a betrayal of all the tradition of my ancestors and the house I loved." She was the daughter of Lionel Edward Sackville-West, 3rd Baron Sackville and his wife Victoria Sackville-West. The surname Sackville-West resulted from the marriage of Vita's great-grandmother Lady Elizabeth Sackville (1796—1870) to George Sackville-West, 5th Earl De La Warr, (1791 - 1869), the Baronetcy being awarded in 1876 to one of his sons, Mortimer Sackville-West, (1820 - 1888), being passed at his death in 1888 to his brother, Lionel , therefore the 2nd Baronet from then on, here mentioned .

Christened "Victoria Mary Sackville-West", she was known as "Vita" throughout her life, probably to distinguish her from her mother Victoria Sackville-West, (1862 - 1936). She was a descendant of Thomas Sackville, contributor to Gorboduc and Mirror for Magistrates.

Her mother, Victoria Sackville-West, was one of the fruits of the sexual relations between the second Baronet, British diplomat Lionel Sackville-West, (1827 - 1908), who served his country in the 1880,s at Madrid British Embassy , Spain, 1878 - 1881, and Washington British Embassy, (U.S.A.), 1881 - 1888, and her already previously married mother, a.k.a. "Pepita", a Spanish Andalusian folklore dancer in Germany, who had married a (still living) Spaniard, being thus considered in England as "illegitimate".

Vita´s mother, Victoria, was however a brilliant hostess in Washington British Embassy after much embarrassed Queen Victoria, in a meeting with her, probably red faced, Royal advisors, gave her consent to allow the illegitimate Spanish-British beauty, Victoria, to play hostess and First Lady at the British Embassy in Washington, as her father Lionel had previously asked.

2nd Baronet Lionel´s daughter, "illegitimate" Victoria, Vita´s mother, was treated by the American and Foreign diplomats there, at Washington, as a well groomed and educated lady,with excellent social manners indeed, having many proposals of marriage there, too.

Vita´s portrait was painted by Hungarian born portrait painter moved to Vienna, Austria and then to London, England, Philip de Laszlo in 1910.

Vita and Rosamund Grosvenor

Vita's first real friend was Rosamund Grosvenor, (London, England, September 1888 - killed by a German V1-rocket bombing, 30 June 1944), who was 4 years her senior. She was the daughter of Algernon Henry Grosvenor, (1864 - married 1887 - 1907), her grandfather being Robert Grosvenor, (1801 - 1893), 1st Baron Ebury since September 1857, of Ebury Manor, in the County of Middlesex, England.

Vita, aged then 7, met Rosamund, aged 11, at Miss Woolf's school in 1899, when Rosamund had been invited to cheer Vita up while her father was fighting in the Boer war. Rosamund and Vita later shared a governess for their morning lessons. Vita fell in love with Rosamund, whom she called 'Roddie' or 'Rose'.

Rosamund, whom Vita called 'the Rubens lady' because she was pink and white and curvy, was besotted with her. "Oh, I dare say I realized vaguely that I had no business to sleep with Rosamund, and I should certainly never have allowed anyone to find it out," she admits in the secret journal, but she saw no conflict between the two relationships: "I really was innocent."

Their secret relationship ended when Vita married in 1913, , aged around 21, 27 years old writer and shifty politician Harold George Nicolson, ( Tehran, Persia, now Iran, 21 November 1886 — 1 May 1968), the third son of British diplomate Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock, (1849 — 1928), an Ambassador in Spain , 1904 - 1905 and at Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1906 - 1910.

Lady Sackville invited Rosamund to visit the family at their villa in Monte Carlo; she also stayed with Vita at Knole, at Rue Lafitte and at Sluie. During the Monte Carlo visit Vita wrote in her diary " I love her so much ". When Rosamund left, Vita wrote "Strange how little I minded, she has no personality, that's why."

Marriage

As stated above, in 1913, Vita Sackville-West married Harold Nicolson, nicknamed Hadji, and the couple moved to Cospoli, Constantinople. Harold Nicolson, (Tehran, Persia, now Iran, 21 November 1886 — 1 May 1968), the son of Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock, (1849 - 1928). Following the pattern of his father career, Harold George, was at different times a diplomat, journalist, broadcaster, Member of Parliament, author of biographies and novels, having both partners a bisexual intimate life, in what would now be called an open marriage.

The Nicolson - Sackville-West couple was present at the Crowning in Tehran, then Persia, 1926, of Rez? Sh?h, 1878-1944, forced to abdicate on September 16, 1941, under the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran.

Both Sackville-West and her husband had consecutive same-sex relations, as did some of the people gravitating around the Bloomsbury Group of writers and artists as Dora Carrington, Lytton Strachey, Gerald Brennan, with which they had some association.

These were no impediment to a true closeness between Sackville-West and Nicolson, as is seen from their nearly daily correspondence (published after their deaths by their son Nigel), and from an interview they gave for BBC radio after World War II. Harold Nicolson gave up his diplomatic career partly so that he could live with Sackville-West in England, uninterrupted by long solitary postings to missions abroad.

They returned to England in 1914 and bought Long Barn, in Kent; they stayed from 1915 to 1930 and employed their friend the architect Edwin Lutyens to help design a small parterre.

The couple had two children: Nigel, (1917- 2004), also a well known editor, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, politician and writer, and Benedict, (1914 - 1978), an art historian. In the 1930s, the family acquired and moved to Sissinghurst Castle, near Cranbrook, in Kent.

Sissinghurst had once been owned by Vita's ancestors, which provided a natural dynastic attraction to her following the loss of Knole. There the couple created the renowned gardens that are now run by the National Trust.

Relationship with Violet Trefusis

The same-sex relationship that had the deepest and most lasting effect on Sackville-West's personal life was with the novelist Violet Trefusis, daughter to courtesan Alice Keppel, most famous mistress of king Edward VII of the United Kingdom, the eldest son of Queen Victoria.

They first met as very young school teenagers when Vita Sackville-West was aged 12 and the later Violet Trefusis 10, and attended school together for a number of years.

The relationship began while both were in their teens. Both married, but by the time both of Sackville-West's sons were no longer toddlers, she and Trefusis had eloped several times from 1918 on, mostly to France, where Sackville-West would dress as a young man when they went out, much as French poetess Baroness Dudevant, Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin, a.k.a. George Sand, (1804 - 1876), had done with ailing younger Polish musician Frederic Chopin, (1810 - 1849), some 100 years earlier, when residing as a couple, 1838 - beginnings of 1839, with her own 2 kids, in the Island of Majorca, Spain .

The affair eventually ended badly, with Trefusis pursuing Sackville-West to great lengths until Sackville-West's affairs with other women finally took their toll.

Also, the two women had made, apparently, a bond to remain exclusive to one another, meaning that although both women were married, neither could engage in sexual relations with her own husband. Sackville-West received allegations that Trefusis had been involved sexually with her own husband, indicating she had broken their bond, prompting her to end the affair. By all accounts, Sackville-West was by that time looking for a reason, and used that as justification. Despite the poor ending, the two women were devoted to one another, and deeply in love, and continued occasional liaisons for a number of years afterward, but never rekindled the affair.

Vita's novel Challenge also bears witness to this affair: Sackville-West and Trefusis had started writing this book as a collaborative endeavour, the male character's name, Julian, being Sackville-West's nickname while passing as a man. Her mother, Lady Victoria Sackville-West, the "illegitimate" Spanish-British daughter of the 2nd Baronet Sackville, Lionel, married to a cousin, Vita´s father, recognized as third Baronet Sackville, found the portrayal obvious enough to insist the novel not be published in England; but her own son Nigel Nicolson, (1973, p. 194), however, praises her: "She fought for the right to love, men and women, rejecting the conventions that marriage demands exclusive love, and that women should love only men, and men only women. For this she was prepared to give up everything How could she regret that the knowledge of it should now reach the ears of a new generation, one so infinitely more compassionate than her own?"

Affair with Virginia Woolf, née Stephen

The affair for which Sackville-West is most remembered was with the prominent writer Virginia Woolf, Adeline Virginia Woolf, ( London, 1882 — Lewes, Sussex, committed suicide, 28 March 1941), in the late 1920s. Woolf, sister of Vanessa Bell, both daughters of Leslie Stephen, founder of the monumental British Dictionary of National Biography, wrote one of her most famous novels, Orlando, described by Sackville-West's son Nigel Nicolson as "the longest and most charming love-letter in literature", as a result of this affair.

Unusually, the moment of the conception of Orlando was documented: Woolf writes in her diary on 5 October 1927: "And instantly the usual exciting devices enter my mind: a biography beginning in the year 1500 and continuing to the present day, called Orlando: Vita; only with a change about from one sex to the other" (posthumous excerpt from her diary by husband Leonard Woolf).

Other affairs

Vita Sackville-West also had a passionate affair with Hilda Matheson, head of the BBC Talks Department. "Stoker" was the pet name given to Hilda by Sackville-West, during their brief affair between 1929 and 1931.

In 1931 Sackville-West became involved in an affair with journalist Evelyn Irons, who had interviewed her after The Edwardians became a bestseller.

She was also involved with her sister-in-law Gwen St. Aubyn, Mary Garman and others not listed here.

The Edwardians (1930) and All Passion Spent (1931) are perhaps her best known novels today. In the latter, the elderly Lady Slane courageously embraces a long suppressed sense of freedom and whimsy after a lifetime of convention. This novel was faithfully dramatized by the BBC in 1986 starring Dame Wendy Hiller.

Sackville-West's science-fantasy Grand Canyon (1942) is a "cautionary tale" (as she termed it) about a Nazi invasion of an unprepared United States. The book takes an unsuspected twist, however, that makes it something more than a typical invasion yarn.

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.

She is less well known as a biographer, and the most famous of those works is her biography of Saint Joan of Arc in the work of the same name. Additionally, she composed a dual biography of Saint Teresa of Ávila and Therese of Lisieux entitled The Eagle and the Dove, a biography of the author Aphra Behn, and a biography of her own grandmother, Spanish dancer, married to a Spaniard, entitled Pepita., the lover and mother of many kids, male/female by British diplomat and second Baronet, Lionel Sackville-West, (1829 - 1908), as stated extensively above, running by 2010 at some 11 editions in English. For instance, the 1985 edition by Telegraph Books, ISBN10 : 0897607856 ISBN13 : 9780897607858 The first edition was Doubleday Publishers, 1937. There was another by Amereon, date unavailable for the moment, ISBN10 : 084881150X , ISBN13 : 9780848811501

Sissinghurst Castle is now owned by the National Trust, given by Sackville-West's son Nigel in order to escape payment of inheritance taxes. Its gardens are famous and remain the most visited in all of England.

A recording was made of Vita Sackville-West reading from her poem The Land. This was on four 78rpm sides in the Columbia Records 'International Educational Society' Lecture series, Lecture 98 (Cat. no. D 40192/3).

There is a brown "blue plaque" commemorating her and Harold Nicolson on their house in Ebury Street, London SW1.

Poetry

• Chatterton (1909)
• A Dancing Elf (1912)
• Constantinople: Eight Poems (1915)
• Poems of West and East (1917)
• Orchard and Vineyard (1921)
• The Land (1926)
• King's Daughter (1929)
• Sissinghurst (1931)
• Invitation to Cast out Care (1931`)
• Solitude (1938)
• The Garden (1946)

Novels

• Heritage (1919)
• The Dragon in Shallow Waters (1921)
• The Heir (1922)
• Challenge (1923)
• Grey Waters (1923)
• Seducers in Ecuador (1924)
• Passenger to Teheran (1926)
• The Edwardians (1930)
• All Passion Spent (1931)
• The Death of Noble Godavary and Gottfried Künstler (1932)
• Thirty Clocks Strike the Hour (1932)
• Family History (1932)
• The Dark Island (1934)
• Grand Canyon (1942)
• Devil at Westease (1947)
• The Easter Party (1953)
• No Signposts in the Sea (1961)

Translations

• Duineser Elegien: Elegies from the Castle of Duino, by Rainer Maria Rilke trns. V. Sackville-West (Hogarth Press, London, 1931)

Biographies/Other works

• Passenger to Teheran (Hogarth Press 1926, reprinted Tauris Parke Paperbacks 2007, ISBN 978-1-84511-343-8)
• Knole and the Sackvilles (1922)
• Saint Joan of Arc (Doubleday 1936, reprinted M. Joseph 1969)
• Pepita (Doubleday, 1937, reprinted Hogarth Press 1970)
• The Eagle and The Dove (M. Joseph 1943)
• Twelve Days: an account of a journey across the Bakhtiari Mountains of South-western Persia (M. Haag 1987, reprinted Tauris Parke Paperbacks 2009 as Twelve Days in Persia, ISBN 978-1-84511-933-1)