Why a Booktrail?
1913 – 1962: Portrait of one of the happiest and strangest marriages there has ever been.
Portrait Of A Marriage
What you need to know before your trail
The marriage was that between the two writers, Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson and the portrait is drawn partly by Vita herself in an autobiography which she left behind at her death in 1962 and partly by her son, Nigel.
It was one of the happiest and strangest marriages there has ever been.
Both Vita and Harold were always in love with other people and each gave the other full liberty ‘without enquiry or reproach’, knowing that their love for each other would be unaffected and even strengthened by the crises which it survived. This account of their love story is now a modern classic.
Travel Guide
Visit Kent
Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson (9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962) was an English poet, novelist, and garden designer.
In 1913, at age 21, Vita married the 27-year-old writer and politician Harold George Nicolson in the private chapel at Knole.
The couple had an open marriage. Both Sackville-West and her husband had same-sex relationships before and during their marriage. They were members of The Bloomsbury Group – writers and artists like themselves
In the early 1920s, Sackville-West wrote a memoir, not published until 1973 entitled Portrait of a Marriage which spoke and looked at her relationships.
In December 1922, Sackville-West first met Virginia Woolf at a dinner party in London. They became interested in each other’s work and later on were to have a long affair.
In the 1930s, the family acquired and moved to Sissinghurst Castle, near Cranbrook, Kent. Sissinghurst had once been owned by Vita’s ancestors, so that made it even more appealing than usual. There the couple created the famous gardens that are now run by the National Trust.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Portrait Of A Marriage
Destination: Sissinghurst, Kent, London Author/Guide: Nigel Nicolson MBE Departure Time: 1913 – 1962
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