Vita Sackville-West

Victoria Mary Sackville-West, The Hon Lady Nicolson, CH, best known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English poet, novelist and gardener. Her long narrative poem, The Land, won the Hawthornden Prize in 1927. She won it again, becoming the only writer to do so, in 1933 with her Collected Poems. She helped create her own gardens in Sissinghurst, Kent which provide the backdrop to Sissinghurst Castle. She was famous for her exuberant aristocratic life, her strong marriage, and her passionate affairs with women like novelist Virginia Woolf.