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 Dennisons Behind the Mask traces the triumph and contradictions of Vitas extraordinary life. His narrative charts a fascinating course from Vitas 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 Vitas 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 Vitas 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.