This volume provides a wide-ranging collection of the writing of noted Bloomsbury figure Vita Sackville-West. One of the most well known lesbian authors of the 20th century, Sackville-West was a central figure among the Bloomsbury modernists, and had a torrid love affair with Virginia Woolf. She wrote in an astounding variety of genres, including travel writing, poetry, fiction, and essays, and is probably best known for her novels, "The Edwardians" and "All Passion Spent", and aristocratic writings about English country gardens. This book collects a wide variety of her works, over half of which, including her travel notebooks, her diaries, some short stories, and her intimate dream notebook, have never been published.

'This lightly annotated volume of selected writings...is intended to acquaint the contemporary reader with the range of Sackville-West's literary talents.' - Publishers Weekly '...a complex and compelling portrait of Sackville-West emerges...' - J.E. Steiner, Choice 'Caws sees the interesting contradictions in Vita's life and writing - at once nonconformist and traditional, 'adventuresome' and reclusive, sexually faithless and maritally loyal, unconventional and immensley snobbish.' - Hermione Lee, The Guardian

MARY ANN CAWS is a literary translator and one of the most important critics of the Bloomsbury circle, modernism, and surrealism. She is Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature and Co-Director of the Henri Peyre French Institute, Graduate School, CUNY. She is a former president of the Modern Language Association. Her many books include Picasso's Weeping Woman: The Life and Art of Dora Maar, Bloomsbury and France: Art and Friends (with Sarah Bird Wright), and Manifesto: A Century of Isms.