Vita & Virginia

Author: Sarah Gristwood
Publisher: National Trust
ISBN: 1911358650
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Book Description
A double biography of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, their friendship and love affair. Virginia Woolf is one of the world’s most famous writers – a leading light of literary modernism and feminism – and a British icon. During the 1920s she had a passionate affair with a fellow author, Vita Sackville-West, and they remained friends until Virginia’s death in 1941. The hero of Virginia’s novel Orlando was modeled on Vita and the book has been described as ‘one of the longest and most charming love letters in history’. That’s on top of the more than 500 letters they wrote to each other. Vita & Virginia is the extraordinary account of the work, friendship and love affair of two prolific novelists, who came to redefine conventions of femininity, sexuality, art and politics for the modern world. The cultural legacies of these formidable women, enduring icons of sexual equality and female emancipation, proliferate around us today – in fashion and television, film and literature. In this scrupulously researched examination of the pair's long friendship, the National Trust draws on their poetry and treasured correspondence to tell the story of this thoroughly modern affair. Both novelists have become closely associated with the National Trust. Vita is most famous today as the co-creator of Sissinghurst, one of the most influential and visited gardens in the world, while Monk’s House, Virginia’s retreat and inspiration, was a celebrated haunt of the Bloomsbury Group, that influential set of artists, thinkers and writers who lived in squares and loved in triangles.

The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf

Author: Louise A. DeSalvo
Publisher: Cleis Press Inc
ISBN: 9781573441964
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Book Description
After they met in 1922, Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf began a passionate relationship that lasted until Woolf's death in 1941. Their revealing correspondence leaves no aspect of their lives untouched. This volume, which features over 500 letters spanning 19 years, includes the writings of both of these literary icons.

Portrait of a Marriage

Author: Nigel Nicolson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226583570
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Book Description
Vita Sackville-West, novelist, poet, and biographer, is best known as the friend of Virginia Woolf, who transformed her into an androgynous time-traveler in Orlando. The story of her love affair with Violet Keppel Trefusis in 1920 is one of intrigue and bewilderment. In Portrait of a Marriage, Nigel Nicolson combines his mother's vivid memoir of escapade with what he learned from copious family letters and explains the context of this romantic crisis. He also describes how Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson went on to live the rest of their lives in harmonious marriage.

Violet to Vita

Author: Violet Trefusis
Publisher: Viking Adult
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description

The 50 Greatest Love Letters of All Time

Author: David H. Lowenherz
Publisher: Gramercy
ISBN: 9780517223338
Category : Love-letters
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
If a picture speaks a thousand words, a love letter speaks a thousand more . . . Even in this age of e-mail, faxes, and instant messaging, nothing has ever replaced the power of a love letter. Much the way light displays every color when passed through a prism, love letters express the spectrum of our emotions, offering a colorful glimpse into the soul of the writer, and of the writer's beloved. For passionate readers and lovers of words, a letter is irresistible. Internationally renowned collector David Lowenherz sifted through hundreds and hundreds of historical and contemporary epistles and selected the most ardent, witty, whimsical, sexy, clever, and touching letters for this inspiring collection. Unlike interviews or biographies, these letters give us marvelous insight into the lives of some of history's most famous lovers and provide intimate glimpses into the hearts of some whose fervent or amusing expressions of devotion will come as a great surprise. Zelda Fitzgerald to Scott Fitzgerald Michelangelo Buonarroti to Vittoria Colonna Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart toConstanze Mozart Harry Truman to Bess Wallace Khalil Gibran to Mary Haskell Benjamin Franklin to Madame Brillon Horatio Nelson to Emma Hamilton George Bush to Barbara Pierce Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn Elizabeth Barrett Browning to George Barrett Jack London to Anna Strunsky Marc Chagall to Bella Chagall Ernest Hemingway to Mary Welsh Jack Kerouac to Sebastian Sampas Alfred Dreyfus to Lucie Dreyfus Marjorie Fossa to Elvis Presley Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West Ludwig van Beethoven to the "Immortal Beloved" Emma Goldman to Ben Reitman Frida Kahlo to Diego Rivera Dylan Thomas to Caitlin Thomas Franz Kafka to Felice Bauer Napoleon Bonaparte to Josephine Bonaparte Abigail Smith to John Adams John Ruskin to Euphemia Ruskin George Sand to Gustave Flaubert Simone de Beauvoir to Nelson Algren Anais Nin to Henry Miller Voltaire to Marie Louise Denis James Thurber to Eva Prout George Bernard Shaw to Stella Campbell Sarah Bernhardt to Jean Richepin Marcel Proust to Daniel Halevy Frank Lloyd Wright to Maude Miriam Noel Anne Sexton to Philip Legler Elizabeth I to Thomas Seymour Oscar Wilde to Constance Lloyd Katherine Mansfield to John Middleton Maury Charles Parnell to Katherine O'Shea Lewis Carroll to Clara Cunnyngham

A Note of Explanation

Author: Vita Sackville-West
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1452170045
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 51

Book Description
“An extraordinary story . . . of a fashionable creature who flits in and out of fairy tales and historical epochs . . Exquisite.” —The Wall Street Journal A Note of Explanation is a previously unknown work by iconic writer Vita Sackville-West. Written in 1922, it was recently rediscovered as a miniature book in Queen Mary’s dollhouse in Windsor Castle. Witty and stylish, the story recounts the antics of a time-traveling sprite who inhabits the dollhouse. This illustrated e-book edition presents the story for the first time since 1924. Lovers of literature and history will rejoice in this irresistible one-of-a-kind e-book.

Virginia Woolf

Author: Eileen Barrett
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 081478965X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 307

Book Description
The last two decades have seen a resurgence of critical and popular attention to Virginia Woolf's life and work. Such traditional institutions as The New York Review of Books now pair her with William Shakespeare in promotional advertisements; her face is used to sell everything from Barnes & Noble books to Bass Ale. Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings represents the first book devoted to Woolf's lesbianism. Divided into two sections, Lesbian Intersections and Lesbian Readings of Woolf's Novels, these essays focus on how Woolf's private and public experience and knowledge of same-sex love influences her shorter fiction and novels. Lesbian Intersections includes personal narratives that trace the experience of reading Woolf through the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. Lesbian Readings of Woolf's Novels provides lesbian interpretations of the individual novels, including Orlando, The Waves, and The Years. Breaking new ground in our understanding of the role Woolf's love for women plays in her major writing, these essays shift the emphasis of lesbian interpretations from Woolf's life to her work.

The Letters of Virginia Woolf

Author: Virginia Woolf
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 9780701204037
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description

Vita and Virginia

Author: Suzanne Raitt
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
'When I finished your book, I cried aloud "Phew!" And Phew meant that I wish I had written it. It seems to me remarkable that someone who never knew Vita and Virginia can understand them so much better than me, who knew both well. And I think of you spending all those years writing,researching, contemplating, finding so much that I have never read, never imagined, and coming up with a book that is a marvel of condensation and commitment.' Nigel NicolsonWhen Virginia Woolf first met Vita Sackville-West at Clive Bell's house in 1922, she wrote that Vita made her feel 'virgin, shy, and schoolgirlish'. But over the next three years Vita charmed away her shyness, and at the end of 1925 made Virginia her lover.Vita and Virginia examines the creative intimacy between the two, interpreting their relationship in the light of their experience as married lesbians. The contradictions and conflicts of their situation are worked out through the construction of different narratives of femininity, in letters,novels, diaries, and other texts. The book discusses the two women's continual renegotiation of what it means to be female, and suggests that the mutual exchange of different versions of 'womenhood' is crucial to the development of their friendship. Vita and Virginia offers innovative readings ofboth women's fiction, their autobiographical texts, and a long-overdue study of Sackville-West's work as a biographer and a novelist.Emphasizing also wider contexts, Suzanne Raitt assesses the links between homosexual desire and literary innovation, public politics and private lives. Her work provides an invaluable new perspective on the relations between sexuality and feminism in modernism.

Library of Luminaries: Jane Austen

Author: Zena Alkayat
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1452157944
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Book Description
Discover the stories behind the stories in this treasurable illustrated biography of Jane Austen. Enchanting illustrations and handwritten text featuring excerpts from Austen's personal letters outline the intimate details of the literary icon's life—her childhood on a farm, the writing of her first novella, her marital woes, the inspiration behind Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, and more. Brimming with delightful details like the objects Austen kept on her desk and how much Emma originally sold for, this beautiful ebook is a lovely new way to celebrate Austen's legacy.