Vita Sackville-West
| The Hon. Vita Sackville-West Lady Nicolson |
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Vita Sackville-West by Philip de László, 1910
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| Born | Victoria Mary Sackville-West 9 March 1892 Knole House, Kent, England |
| Died | 2 June 1962 (aged 70) Sissinghurst Castle, Kent, England |
| Occupation | Novelist, poet, gardener |
| Nationality | UK |
| Period | 1917–1960 |
| Spouse | Harold Nicolson (m. 1913–62); 2 sons |
Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson, CH (9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English poet, novelist, and garden designer. A successful and prolific novelist, poet, and journalist during her lifetime—she was twice awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Imaginative Literature: in 1927 for her pastoral epic, The Land, and in 1933 for her Collected Poems—today she is remembered for the celebrated garden at Sissinghurst she created with her diplomat husband, Sir Harold Nicolson. She is also remembered as the inspiration for the androgynous protagonist of the historical romp Orlando: A Biography, by her famous friend and admirer, Virginia Woolf, with whom she had a decade-long affair.
Victoria Sackville-West (known as "Vita") was born at Knole House near Sevenoaks, Kent, the only child of Victoria Sackville-West and Lionel Edward Sackville-West, 3rd Baron Sackville, who were cousins. Her mother was the illegitimate daughter of Lionel Sackville-West, 2nd Baron Sackville and a Spanish dancer, Josefa de Oliva (née Durán y Ortega), known as Pepita. Christened Victoria Mary Sackville-West, the girl was known as "Vita" throughout her life to distinguish her from her mother.
The usual English aristocratic inheritance customs were followed by the Sackville-West family, which prevented Vita from inheriting Knole on the death of her father. The house followed the title, and was bequeathed instead by her father to his nephew Charles, who became the 4th Baron.
In 1913, at age 21, Vita married the 27-year-old writer and politician Harold George Nicolson (21 November 1886 – 1 May 1968) in the private chapel at Knole. Nicknamed Hadji, or pilgrim, by his father, he was the third son of British diplomat Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock (1849–1928). The couple had an open marriage. Both Sackville-West and her husband had same-sex relationships before and during their marriage, as did some of the people in the Bloomsbury Group of writers and artists, with many of whom they had connections.
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