Sackville-West, Victoria Mary

(1892-1962)

   Related to Thomas Sackville (see entry) and known as Vita, she was born at Knole near Sevenoaks, Kent. Her father was created Baron Sackville in 1908. By the time she was eighteen, she had written eight novels (one in French) and five plays, all on historical themes. In 1913 she married Sir Harold Nicolson (Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, 1920). One of her important books of the period leading up to the 1920s was Knole and the Sackvilles (1922), a history of her home and ancestors. She went on to write many more novels and biographies and two volumes of poetry, Poems of West and East (1917) and Orchard and Vineyard (1921). Her poems evoke the beauty of the English countryside and the rural year in Kent. Her love of gardening is legendary; she developed the famous gardens at her home, Sissinghurst Castle, which now belongs to the National Trust. She was appointed Companion of Honor in 1948. She died of cancer. Some of her poems: "Absence," "Beechwoods at Knole," "Full Moon," "On the Lake," "September 1939," "The Aquarium, San Francisco," "The Garden."

   Sources: A New Treasury of Poetry. Neil Philip, ed. Stewart, Tabori, and Chang, 1990. Eerdman's Book of Christian Poetry. Pat Alexander and Veronica Zundel, eds. William B. Eerdmans, 1981. Microsoft Encarta 2006 (DVD). Microsoft Corporation, 2006. Moon is Shining Bright as Day: An Antholog y of Good-humoured Verse. Ogden Nash, ed. J.B. Lippincott, 1953. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). Poetry for Pleasure: A Choice of Poetry and Verse on a Variety of Themes. Ian Parsons, ed. W.W. Norton, 1977. Salt and Bitter and Good: Three Centuries of English and American Women Poets. Cora Kaplan, ed. Paddington Press, 1975. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Women's Poetry of the 1930s: A Critical Antholog y. Jane Dowson, ed. Routledge, 1966.