orig. Victoria Mary Sackville-West
born March 9, 1892, Knole, Kent, Eng.
died June 2, 1962, Sissinghurst Castle, Kent
British novelist and poet.
The daughter of a baron, she married the diplomat and author Harold Nicolson (18861968) in 1913; her journal was the basis of Portrait of a Marriage (1973) by their son Nigel, which described a happy marriage in which both partners were principally homosexual. Her gift for evoking the beauty of the Kentish countryside was evident in her long poem The Land (1926). Her best-known novels are The Edwardians (1930) and All Passion Spent (1931). She also wrote biographies and gardening books. She was the inspiration for the title character in her friend Virginia Woolf 's novel Orlando .