Behind the Mask: The Life of Vita Sackville-West

Written by Matthew Dennison

Narrated by Robbie MacNab

Aristocrat, literary celebrity, ‘Rose Queen’, devoted wife, lesbian, recluse, iconoclast – Vita Sackville-West was many things, but she was never straightforward. Her life is re-told here in a dazzling new biography.

In this stunning portrait of Vita Sackville-West, Matthew Dennison traces the triumph and contradictions of Vita’s extraordinary life. His narrative charts a fascinating course from Vita’s 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 Vita’s 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 Vita’s public achievements to reveal an often troubled persona which heroically resisted compromise on every level. Drawing on wide-ranging 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Release date: Oct 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9780007595716

Matthew Dennison

Matthew Dennison is the author of seven critically acclaimed works of non-fiction, including Behind the Mask: The Life of Vita Sackville-West, a Book of the Year in The Times, Spectator, Independent and Observer. His most recent book is Over the Hills and Far Away: The Life of Beatrix Potter. He is a contributor to Country Life and Telegraph.

Reviews for Behind the Mask

[vanessajiw · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An updated biography from the original study by Glendinning. Engaging, modern research more detail on the financial situations and the sexual side. However sympathetic as well. Worth reading. Structure in the modern style slightly more jumping around as you go along chronologically.

[patsymurray · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a well-researched biography that provides much insight into Vita Sackville-West's event-filled life. Matthew Dennison's portrayal gives a balanced view of this woman who had the power to move many people, men and women, to passion, and yet lived almost solely for herself. The end of her life is sad, but perhaps that is true of many people -- she kept at her writing and gardening, but she had lost much of her verve and many of her friends.

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Other than her affair with Virginia Woolf, I knew little about Vita Sackville-West, but I am intrigued by her life and how she lived in many ways out of step with her own era. I definitely need to pick up one of her books at some point and I appreciated learning more about this fascinating woman.