Vita Sackville-West

MARY ANN CAWS is a literary translator and one of the most important critics of the Bloomsbury circle, modernism, and surrealism. She is Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature and Co-Director of the Henri Peyre French Institute, Graduate School, CUNY. She is a former president of the Modern Language Association. Her many books include Picasso's Weeping Woman: The Life and Art of Dora Maar, Bloomsbury and France: Art and Friends (with Sarah Bird Wright), and Manifesto: A Century of Isms.

'This lightly annotated volume of selected writings...is intended to acquaint the contemporary reader with the range of Sackville-West's literary talents.' - Publishers Weekly '...a complex and compelling portrait of Sackville-West emerges...' - J.E. Steiner, Choice 'Caws sees the interesting contradictions in Vita's life and writing - at once nonconformist and traditional, 'adventuresome' and reclusive, sexually faithless and maritally loyal, unconventional and immensley snobbish.' - Hermione Lee, The Guardian

• Foreword Preface by Nigel Nicolson Introduction Some Diary Selections Early Writings Knole and the Sackvilles (1922) Letters Long passage(s) from Challenge (1923) and reference to its Other Titles (Enchantment, Froth, Foam, Rebellion, Rebels, Vanity: A Study) Seducers in Ecuador (1924) Reference to 'The Land' (1926) and Passage from 'Autumn,' in The Garden Selections from Passenger to Teheran (1926) Selections from Poems, 'The Persian Flute,' 'A Persian Legend,' 'A Bowl of Blue Beads' (1928) and Other Poems Journal of Travel with Virginia Woolf to France Poems from East and West: On Travel Selections from Twelve Days in the Bakhtiari Mountains Poems on Les Baux Reference to Aphra Benn (1927) 'The Incomparable Astrea' 'Some Tendencies of Modern English Poetry': Lecture (1927) A Chapter from Andrew Marvell (1929) Reference to The Edwardians (1930) 'England is Always Very Much The Same' Reference to All Passion Spent (1931) 'Thirty Clocks Strike the Hour,' Memoir so Titled, '1932:'I Remember Being Taken to Visit my Grandmother...' Reference to Family History (1932) Dresses, Descriptions; English Architecture (and 'How much I like French Architecture') Reference to The Dark Island (1934) Description of Water, Port Breton, the Island of Storn, Feeling of Doom Travel Diary in the United States Reference to Saint. Joan of Arc (1936) and from Eagle and Dove: 'Some Mysterious Central Originating Force' Selections from Country Notes in Wartime (1940) 'In Memoriam Virginia Woolf': Poem (1941) 'The Poetry Reading': Story, about Vita's own Appearance (1944) 'The Engagement' Story Selection of Garden Articles from The Joy of Gardening (1951, 1953, 1955, 1958) and others Reference to The Easter Party (1953) Reference to Daughter of France (1959) Reference to No Signposts in the Sea (1961) Poem: 'Sea Sonnet' Selections from Faces (1961) Poems Unpublished, or Not in Collections 'The Intellectual to his Puppy, and the Puppy to his New Owner' 'En Bateau' 'Winter Afternoon'