Behind The Mask The Life Of Vita Sackville West

A dazzling new biography of Vita Sackville-West, the 20th century aristocrat, literary celebrity, devoted wife, famous lover of Virginia Woolf, recluse, and iconoclast who defied categorization. In this stunning new biography of Vita Sackville-West, Matthew Dennison's Behind the Mask traces the triumph and contradictions of Vita's extraordinary life. His narrative charts a fascinating course from Vita's lonely childhood at Knole, through her affectionate but ‘open' marriage to Harold Nicolson (during which both husband and wife energetically pursued homosexual affairs, Vita most famously with Virginia Woolf), and through Vita's literary successes and disappointments, to the famous gardens the couple created at Sissinghurst. The book tells how, from her privileged world of the aristocracy, Sackville-West brought her penchant for costume, play-acting and rebellion to the artistic vanguard of modern Britain. Dennison is the acclaimed author of many books including a biography of Queen Victoria. Here, in the first biography to be written of Vita for thirty years, he reveals the whole story and gets behind ‘the beautiful mask' of Vita's public achievements to reveal an often troubled persona which heroically resisted compromise on every level. Drawing on wideranging sources and the extensive letters that sustained her marriage, this is a compelling story of love, loss and jealousy, of high-life and low points, of binding affection and illicit passion – a portrait of an extraordinary, 20th-century life.

Matthew Dennison creates a revealing portrait of the brave and charismatic Vita, in the first biography of her to be written for thirty years.

A charming extraordinary early 20th century novel about family relationships. When the great statesman Lord Slane dies, everyone assumes his dutiful wife will slowly fade away, the paying guest of each of her six children. But Lady Slane surprises everyone by escaping to a rented house in Hampstead where she revels in her new freedom, revives youthful ambitions and gathers some very unsuitable companions. Irreverent, entertaining and insightful, this is a tale of the unexpected joys of growing older. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOANNA LUMLEY

“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.

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.

The Whitbread Prize-winning biography of Vita Sackville-West. Vita Sackville-West was a vital, gifted and complex woman. A dedicated writer, she made her mark as poet, novelist, biographer, travel writer, journalist and broadcaster. She was also one of the most influential English gardeners of the century, creating with her husband the famous gardens at Sissinghurst. In her Whitbread Prize-winning biography, Glendinning documents Vita's extraordinary life, focusing on her relationships with Violet Trefusis, Virginia Woolf, her husband, and her two sons together with her unpublicised love affairs. Vita was determined to be more than just a married woman and mother; her passionate, secretive character, and the strains, mistakes and achievements of her remarkable life makes this an absorbing and disturbing book.

Delve into a legendary literary love affair '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 death in 1941. Intimate and playful, these selected letters and diary entries allow us to hear these women's constantly changing feelings for each other in their own words. Eavesdrop on the affair that inspired Virginia to write her most fantastical novel, Orlando, and discover a relationship that - 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.

Matthew Dennison's elegant and magisterial biography of Her late Majesty, updated following the death of Elizabeth II and the accession of King Charles III. 'A worthy and balanced overview of the Queen's life. Dennison is especially good on her childhood... quietly, tactfully, tastefully reverent.'The Times The death of Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September 2022 was more than just a moment of profound sadness; her passing marked the end of an era in our national life – and the final closing of the Elizabethan Age. For millions of people, both in Britain and across the world, Elizabeth II was the embodiment of monarchy. Her long life spanned nearly a century of national and global history, from a time before the Great Depression to the era of Covid-19. Her reign embraced all but seven years of Britain's postwar history up to the accession of her son King Charles III; she was served by fifteen UK prime ministers from Churchill to Truss, and witnessed the administrations of fourteen US presidents from Truman to Biden. In this brand-new biography of the longest-reigning sovereign in British history, Matthew Dennison traces her life and reign across an era of unprecedented and often seismic social change. Stylish in its writing and nuanced in its judgements, The Queen charts the joys and triumphs as well as the disappointments and vicissitudes of a remarkable royal life; it also assesses the achievement of a woman regarded as the champion of a handful of 'British' values endorsed – if no longer practised – by the bulk of the nation: service, duty, steadfastness, charity and stoicism.