Aristocrat, novelist, essayist, traveler, and lover of Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West lived a fascinating and daring life on the periphery of the Bloomsbury circle. She wrote in an astounding variety of genres, including travel narrative, historical and literary studies, poetry, fiction, and essays, and is probably best known or her novels, The Edwardians and All Passion Spent, and incomparable writings about English country houses and gardens. Here, for the first time, is an anthology that represents the full expanse of her interests and styles. Over half of the works, including intimate diaries and a dream notebook, have never been published. Edited by a foremost expert on the Bloomsbury circle, Vita Sackville-West: Selected Writings provides the best and most accessible introduction to this unique writer.

1 Over half of the texts have never been previously published2 Brings together examples of all of Vita's many genres - poetry, essays, travel writing, letters, diaries, short stories, novels3 Edited by a noted critic of modernism and the Bloomsbury circle4 Includes a foreword by Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West's son

Preface by Nigel Nicolson * Introduction * Diaries and Dreams * Victoria Sackville-West, Diary Selections * Vita Sackville-West, Diary Selections * Vita's Dream Notebook * Memoirs * Beginnings * Thirty Clocks Strike the Hour * Letters * Family Letters * Sons and Mothers * Vita Sackville-West/Harold Nicolson letters * Vita Sackville-West/Virginia Woolf * Travel Writing * From Passenger to Tehran * From Twelve Days in the Bakhtiari Mountains * Vita's US Travel Diary * Critical Writing * Some Tendencies of Modern English Poetry * Andrew Marvell * Gardening and Houses * From Knole and the Sackvilles * From Country Notes * From English Country Houses * From Joy of Gardening * Short Stories * The Engagement * The Poet * The Poetry Reading * Novels * From Challenge * Seducers in Ecuador * Poetry * Sissinghurst * The Muezzin: Constantiople * Palmyra * A Bowl of Blue Beads * Persia * Storm in the Mountains: For Hilda Matheson * The Quarryman * The Temple of Love * Dawn * Middleton Place, South Carolina * In Memoriam: Virginia Woolf * The Intellectual to His Puppy * Winter Afternoon * From Autumn * Selected Bibliography * Glossary of the Works of Vita Sackville-West