Love Letters: Vita and Virginia

byVita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf, Alison Bechdel (Introducer)
'I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone. I just miss you...'

At a dinner party in 1922, Virginia Woolf met the renowned author, aristocrat, and sapphist Vita Sackville-West. Virginia wrote in her diary that she didn't think much of Vita's conversation, but she did think very highly of her legs... It was to be the start of almost twenty years of flirtation, friendship, and literary collaboration. Their correspondence ended only with Virginia's suicide in 1941.

Intimate and playful, these selected letters and diary entries allow us to hear the women's constantly changing feelings for each other in their own words. Eavesdrop on the affair that inspired Virginia to write Orlando, and discover an extraordinary relationship which - even a hundred years later - feels radical and relatable.

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION FROM ALISON BECHDEL, AUTHOR OF FUN HOME AND CREATOR OF THE BECHDEL TEST.
"A deliciously tactile volume of love letters; I've been carrying them around the house, dipping in and out, and finding new things each time. As Vita said of Mrs Dalloway, they bewilder, illuminate and reveal" - Nino Strachey, author of Rooms of Their Own
Nino Strachey, author of Rooms of Their Own

About Vita Sackville-West

Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) was born at Knole in Kent, the only child of aristocratic parents. In 1913 she married diplomat Harold Nicolson, with whom she had two sons and travelled extensively. They had an unconventional marriage, and troughout her life Sackville-West had a number of other relationships with both men and women. She wrote novels, non-fiction, and poetry, including The Land (1926), which won the Hawthorden Prize.
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • ISBN: 9781473582408
  • Length: 304 pages
  • Price: £5.49
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