Correspondance 1923 - 1941

by Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf, Raymond Las Vergnas (Translator)

C’est à Londres, en 1922, que Virginia Woolf rencontra pour la première fois, au cours d’un dîner, Vita Sackville-West qui allait être pour de nombreuses années une des deux ou trois personnes les plus importantes de sa vie. Après avoir lu leur correspondance qui se poursuit sur plus de dix-huit ans, on ne pourra plus douter de la profondeur de la passion qui lia ces deux femmes exceptionnelles – une passion qui, en dépit des orages de la jalousie et parfois de la fureur, leur apporta, jusqu’à la mort tragique de Virginia, le bonheur d’une tendresse et d’une réciprocité de désirs qui renaissaient, crise après crise, de leurs cendres indestructibles. Vita-Sackville-West excellait dans l’art de la correspondance. Qu’elle dépeigne des jardins anglais ou les steppes de la Prusse, les montagnes de la Perse ou les déserts de l’Arizona, sa démarche est alerte, imagée, avec un rien de malice dans la satire mondaine. Ses lettres nous transportent dans une époque où Gide et Proust choquaient, où un procès en obscénité était intenté à une romancière accusée de saphisme ; une période aussi où la littérature de langue anglaise, entraînée par de grands novateurs, continuait d’accorder la prééminence aux techniques de la fiction. Virginia Woolf, pour sa part, n’allait cesser de se débattre dans les affres de l’enfantement de « sa » vérité de l’écriture qui, peu à peu, l’acculerait au seuil de la folie. Mais au cœur de cette recherche torturante allait jaillir, avec une fraîcheur de fontaine, Orlando, dédié à Vita. À travers cette correspondance, c’est un nouvel aspect du fascinant et multiple visage de Virginia Woolf que nous apprenons à mieux connaître encore.

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, Classics, LGBT, Lesbian, Romance, Biography

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1926

About the author

Novels of British writer Victoria Mary Sackville-West, known as Vita, include The Edwardians (1930) and All Passion Spent (1931).

This prolific English author, poet, and memoirist in the early 20th century lived not so privately.
While married to the diplomat Harold Nicolson, she conducted a series of scandalous amorous liaisons with many women, including the brilliant Virginia Woolf. They had an open marriage. Both Sackville-West and her husband had same-sex relationships. Her exuberant aristocratic life was one of inordinate privilege and way ahead of her time. She frequently traveled to Europe in the company of one or the other of her lovers and often dressed as a man to be able to gain access to places where only the couples could go. Gardening, like writing, was a passion Vita cherished with the certainty of a vocation: she wrote books on the topic and constructed the gardens of the castle of Sissinghurst, one of England's most beautiful gardens at her home.

She published her first book Poems of East and West in 1917. She followed this with a novel, Heritage, in 1919. A second novel, The Heir (1922), dealt with her feelings about her family. Her next book, Knole and the Sackvilles (1922), covered her family history. The Edwardians (1930) and All Passion Spent (1931) are perhaps her best known novels today. In the latter, the elderly Lady Slane courageously embraces a long suppressed sense of freedom and whimsy after a lifetime of convention. In 1948 she was appointed a Companion of Honour for her services to literature. She continued to develop her garden at Sissinghurst Castle and for many years wrote a weekly gardening column for The Observer. In 1955 she was awarded the gold Veitch medal of the Royal Horticultural Society. In her last decade she published a further biography, Daughter of France (1959) and a final novel, No Signposts in the Sea (1961).

She died of cancer on June 2, 1962.

Reviews

[Ellie]

oh, to be an aristocrat-gardener in the 1920s who falls in love with a bloomsbury author and you two then exchange the most iconic sapphic love letters over the course of a decade . . .

| Read for #FFFeb2021 |

Thank you to the publishers for providing me with a review copy!

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

That's a long, almost daily correspondence between two women for nearly 20 years. Through these exchanges, we discover the two women's moods and lives, their frequent trips, meetings, and everyday worries. They talk to us about themselves, their desires, and their concerns. But, above all, this love is born, which will always be present despite the pranks, as if love could not conquer these admitted and revealed infidelities. There is this presence, this message. Love exists in all its forms; it can escape to other hearts but always comes back to the main one. No doubt it needs its ramifications, these additional sources, so as not to dry you, and return to the first resurgence, even bigger and stronger. By interfering in their private lives, one can better define the characters, understand their works, discover a new sensibility there, and let oneself be guided and slide more easily into their worlds, in their words. They were narrating a love story.

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

i finished this thick collection off in a day, unable to interrupt my eavesdropping on virginia and vita, no matter how i tried. i sensed that this was dangerous territory, that in watching dual performances of idealized selves fall in love and flirt and fuck and fight, i would surely find myself heartsore and longing. it is true. i think of vita, her small lips, her giant eyes, her young, exuberant devotion and admiration and i have the chest pains of a living crush. i think of quiet virginia, the slender crag, with her pride and brilliance and wish to be her reincarnation -- madness, illness, ennui and all -- if it meant i could one day hope to match her prose. how did VW love VS-W so hard and still love L so well and perhaps even harder? how did VW write these letters and still have the emotional time for novels and essays and equally-voluminous (if not equally-passionate) correspondences with other lovers, with friends and family? i am overwhelmed. even on blank days, i am lucky to wring three pages from the dry stone that is my brain. and of course, she was the virginia woolf and i am just me, but really, need the disparity be so formidable!? my main complaint with this collection (and the reason for that one penalty star) is that virginia is too edited. in another collection of her letters (which i lost this weekend) one gets a better sense of her rhythms to vita, while in this collection we are lucky to two consecutive paragraph's from virginia without the maddening and enticing secrecy of the ". . . " in this particular collection, it is really vita who shines.

now, of course, i am off to read orlando and will probably be bedridden with all my swooning by the end of this.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

so.. turns out that the people were wrong pertaining to that quote's origin HA. BUT i still loved this so much (almost cried at school reading this on my spare btw). small review to come (i think?)

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AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH i’m so fucking excited to read this. i don’t care about the ridiculous number of books on my currently reading!!

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added to my tbr because it’s virginia woolf and cause of this quote i read in a substack post from this book: “I always have such need to merely talk to you. Even when I have nothing to talk about - with you I just seem to go right ahead and sort of invent it. I invent it for you.”

[Celeste Corrêa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vita Sackville-West e Virginia Woolf conheceram-se no dia 14 de dezembro de 1922 num jantar em casa de Clive Bell.

No seu diário Virginia escreveu:«[...] a bonita e prendada aristocrata Sackville-West [...] os seus modos aristocráticos são idênticos aos de uma actriz - sem falsa timidez ou falsa modéstia - fazem-me sentir virgem, tímida, menina de escola. [...] Ela é uma granadeira; dura; bem-parecida; varonil; com tendência para o duplo queixo.»

Vita numa carta ao seu marido escreve:«Simplesmente, adoro Virginia Woolf. [...] Mrs Woolf é tão simples: dá a impressão de algo grandioso. É absolutamente genuína: não usa quaisquer adornos exteriores - veste-se de modo atroz. [...] uma espécie de beleza espiritual impõe-se-nos, e sentimos o fascínio de a observar. [...] É ao mesmo tempo reservada e humana, silenciosa até querer dizer alguma coisa, e então di-la surpreendentemente bem. [...] Querido, apaixonei-me perdidamente.»

Ambas identificaram os sentimentos uma pela outra desde esse primeiro encontro; a amizade e admiração rapidamente se tranformaram em amor - mais físico do lado de Virginia mais intelectual do lado de Vita (assim o entendi).
Com casamentos que tinham muito em comum por causa da liberdade que se permitiam de cada lado o amor foi vivido sem obstáculos nem planos radicais. Vita e Virginia mantiveram sempre um respeito e uma dignidade inalteráveis para com os seus maridos.

Não há segredos entre Vita e Virginia: falam abertamente sobre relações que mantêm paralelamente com outras mulheres. Vita era mais mulherenga, Virginia mais ciumenta e de saúde frágil.

O relacionamento durou até à morte de Virginia.Houve amuos, críticas, ciúmes mas só uma zanga a propósito do livro Os Três Guinéus e um afastamento gradual.

«A minha amizade com Vita chegou ao fim. Não com uma desavença, não com um estrondo, mas assim como a fruta madura cai. [...] E não existe amargura, nem desilusão, apenas um certo vazio.», escreveu Virginia no seu diário em 1935, mas com o início da guerra há uma reaproximação.

As cartas são apaixonadas, bonitas, espirituosas com extravagâncias humorísticas.

De todas as cartas escolho duas:

De Virgínia para Vita:

«Acabei agora de falar contigo. Parece tão estranho. Aqui reina uma paz perfeita - eles estão a jogar bowls - eu já tinha ido pôr flores no teu quarto. E tu aí, com as bombas a cair à tua volta.
O que posso eu dizer - senão que te amo e que passarei este estranho fim de dia a pensar em ti, que estás aí sozinha.
Queridíssima - escreve-me duas ou três linhas [...]
Deste-me tanta felicidade.»
pág. 261


De Vita para Virgínia:

«Que bom foi estar contigo - como me soube bem esta visita. Não sou capaz de expressar todo o prazer de estar contigo. Sabes que te amo e sabes que gosto de Leonard. Existe uma diferença entre amar e gostar. Por isso, tu és o meu amor e de Leonard eu gosto. Gosto imensamente de Leonard [...].
Querida - obrigada pelas minhas horas felizes contigo. Significas mais para mim do que alguma vez saberás.»
pág. 263

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a curated selection from the letters and journals of Woolf and Sackville-West, packaged for a general readership and without any scholarly apparatus. Letters and extracts are truncated invisibly which is a bit misleading, and ellipses only indicate cuts from within sections. That's fine for a popular edition, but just something to be aware of.

The title of 'love letters' should also be taken in its widest sense, encompassing as it does deep friendship, gentle flirtation, physical attraction. VW and VS-W did love each other, but they also both loved their husbands and Vita has other affairs with women, some more passionate than that she shared with VW. In any case, their relationship is most usefully liberated from labels and categories: the important thing is the connection which developed, wavered, waned and was revived throughout the time they knew each other.

Both women are vivid, entertaining writers and that's the real value of this focused selection.

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley

[Helga چـو ایـران نباشد تن من مـباد · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

I’ve lived in you all these months – coming out, what are you really like? Do you exist? Have I made you up?

They met in 1922 at a dinner party and had one of the most fascinating and passionate literary love affairs of the 20th century.

Am I in love with her? But what is love?

This book is a collection of letters between the two friends and their diary entries which continued until Virginia's suicide.

I could only think of you as being very distant and beautiful and calm. A lighthouse in clean waters.

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduced by Alison Bechdel this is an ingenious recreation through letters and diary entries of the shifting relations between writers Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West - which famously spawned Woolf’s Orlando. This collection spans from an initial meeting at a dinner party in 1922 through to Virginia’s death by suicide in 1941. Their early encounters weren’t particularly promising, more stumbling and uncertain than fuelled by overwhelming, immediate attraction, their perceptions skewed by awkward first impressions and other peoples’ opinions. On the surface Vita and Virginia were vastly different: shabby, bohemian but fiercely judgemental Virginia versus well-travelled, “sapphist” and country aristocrat Vita. But somehow, they found common ground and eventually started a slow-burning affair. When they first met, Virginia was already 40 but not yet at the height of her fame, while Vita at 30 was a well-known society figure and respected author. Both were in solid, established, but unconventional marriages: Vita felt free to continue relationships with women that predated her marriage as her husband Harold Nicolson continued his with men; Virginia and Leonard had negotiated a close but “chaste” way of living and working together.

As well as charting their time together, and apart, Vita and Virginia’s letters and diary entries offer an intriguing glimpse of key moments in cultural and social history: from the cabarets of Weimar Germany to the impact of the Spanish Civil War to the struggle to adjust and survive the early years of WW2. They also present an unusual perspective on love and desire from its early beginnings to its gradual fading. It’s clear from their letters Vita and Virginia each recognised something wonderfully different and special about the other: Vita’s increasingly fascinated by Virginia’s sharp intellect, the originality of her thoughts on literature and culture; and Virginia by Vita’s bodily confidence and independent spirit. But even so they took years to fully confess their feelings and desires, and throughout I had an impression of them holding something back. A fundamental tentativeness and a prickliness about their relationship, like Schopenhauer’s porcupines caught up in a fragmented intimacy, continually moving closer then hastily springing apart – Vita lingering on Virginia’s doorstep not daring to knock, Virginia hesitant to suggest meeting. Virginia’s cautious about fully committing to Vita who’s notorious for her numerous intense affairs with women; Vita’s concerned about what she’s heard about Virginia’s fragile mental state. In the early stages of their love affair, they often seem to live vicariously through each other’s experiences: her husband’s job meant intrepid Vita frequently travelled across the world to places Virginia could only dream about; Virginia juggling frequent bouts of ill health but firmly embedded in Bloomsbury and London literary circles that Vita found intriguing but difficult to handle. One constant seems to be their close bonds with animals particularly their dogs, as well as their emerging ideas about writing, each striving to find ways to express perceptions about language and their wider worlds. Ultimately bittersweet but incredibly compelling.

[Jutta Swietlinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, I’m quite sure this review is going to be one of the most personal reviews I’ve ever written, which is a little unsettling. But this book has touched me so deeply that I just can’t help it.
It’s practically a sapphic romance novel, with all the components you could ever wish for: longing, desire, passion, jealousy, loss, disappointment, estrangement, hope, reunion, and, above all, undying love.
Besides, there are some popular sapphic tropes in the book, like Age Gap (Virginia was born in 1882, Vita in 1892) or Ice Queen (Vita and Virginia accused each other of giving each other the cold shoulder several times), and there’s even some blue blood involved, since Vita was a noblewoman.
Looking like an epistolary novel, the book tells the love story between the bold, fun-loving, wealthy womanizer Vita and the sickly, much more isolated intellectual Virginia through numerous letters (and a few diary entries), which make their flamboyant personalities and their changeable relationship come vividly to life, in an amusing or thoughtful, witty or tragic way.
You can witness the relationship between these two deeply fascinating women (both married, both writers, both lesbian, both sometimes strong and happy, sometimes sad and needy) from making each other’s acquaintance in 1922 till their last letter in 1941. And you can watch them getting to know each other better, becoming intimate with each other physically and emotionally, becoming spatially separated (Vita travelled a lot), longing for each other and being mutually jealous, becoming estranged and finding each other again. The terms “friendship” and “love” are words they used frequently.
But in each romance, there has to be an end eventually – and that’s where reality strikes. Because Vita and Virginia are no fictional characters, invented by some author, but they were very real personalities with very human characteristics and weaknesses.
That’s why I sympathized with them a lot during reading. When, for example, Virginia expresses her longing for being physically intimate with Vita, when Vita keeps her distance in her letters while they’re physically close, whereas she describes her love for Virginia in passionate words while she’s away, when Vita tries to hide her affairs with other women while Virginia is wild with jealousy, when Vita is jealous of Virginias female lovers nevertheless, I just couldn’t stay indifferent.
I can’t help but connect strongly with Virginia, and not only because I’m also a lesbian woman, also a writer (although I‘m not so presumptuous as to compare my own works with her famous masterpieces, of course ;-)) who publishes her books at her own expense, also a feminist, also a freethinker with strong feelings and a predisposition to depression, but I’ve recognized a certain philosophy of life and a certain way to express it in her letters that just speaks to me intensely as well.
There are a thousand more reasons why this touching book resonates deeply with me. I can’t wait to re-read it as soon as possible (if only for the countless quote worthy phrases :-)).
If I could, I would give 20 Stars.

[Marta Cava]

Les he acabades de llegir i ara només necessito dues coses: una, que algú m'abraci; l'altra, que algú m'allunyi de dietaris i correspondències una temporada o acabaré amb el cor fet a miques (encara més, fet a miques, vull dir)

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally! A collection of their letters with an introduction written by a lesbian! When I found out this was being published, I almost cried. I have reviewed the original publication of their letters to each other, “The Letters of Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf” and made it clear I had a few issues with the introduction by Mitchell A. Leaska, so while Alison Bechdel’s was much more brief, it still made my heart sing.

These letters are my comfort read. They mean something incommunicable to me, and trying to put that into words seems insurmountable. But I will say: while I found a few editorial errors (I am almost far too familiar with these these letters by now not to notice), it was a beautifully compiled edition, and I adored the addition of diary entries and some of Vita’s letters to her husband, Harold. While it was of course an abridged collection, having the letters and diary entries all in one place made it an even more enjoyable read. And while I wish they hadn’t omitted some of my favourite Virginia excerpts, even holding this gorgeous book felt like a privilege. It felt like the correct way to read these beautiful love letters between two women who will always fascinate and mean the world to me.

[Paula Mota]

# WIT Month

Que fazes para levares a vida que levas? 60 pessoas a jantar, quando a mim uma só basta para me liquidar durante três dias e me pôr a boiar como uma lentilha de água numa ribeira suja.

Gosto muito de ler diários e cartas de escritores/escritoras e tento não pensar demasiado na devassa da vida privada que isso é, já que muitas dessas obras foram publicadas postumamente e sem autorização dos próprios. Até à data, só o “Diário Secreto” de Pushkin me tinha suscitado um manifesto desconforto, mas esta edição de “Cartas Íntimas a Vita Sackeville-West” também me causou vários pruridos. Ainda que nunca corresse esse perigo porque a minha avó era analfabeta, foi como se tivesse encontrado as suas cartas de amor num baú do sótão. Que constrangedor, por exemplo, saber as alcunhas amorosas que ela reservara para as suas paixões!

Potto beija-te, e diz que poderia esfregar-te as costas, e curá-las, apenas lambendo-tas.

Por outro lado, ler os constantes queixumes de Virginia Woolf atirou-me para uma sala de espera do centro de saúde, rodeada de velhinhas a compararem os seus achaques. Sei que a escritora tinha uma saúde mental e física frágil, mas parece comprazer-se não só nas suas maleitas como nas dos outros, com um leve toque de hipocondria. Lê-se também nas entrelinhas a anorexia de que supostamente sofria, com reparos constantes à gordura das outras pessoas, compondo um perfil de rabugice que realmente se aguça na crítica à produção literária alheia. Rebecca West, Gertrude Stein, Katherine Mansfield, D.H. Lawrence, nenhum foi poupado.

Depois, ela [Mansfield] veio com toda uma série de pequenas histórias – e eu tive ciúmes, é verdade; porque foram postas nas nuvens; se eu deixei de as ler, não é, no entanto, por essa razão mas por causa do seu sentimentalismo fácil e exacerbado.

Ainda assim, são os vislumbres do panorama social e cultural da época os momentos mais valiosos desta compilação.

No que respeita a Radclyffe Hall, estou inteiramente de acordo contigo: o que é preciso fazer? Ela fez uma carta da sua lavra, protestando a sua inocência e afirmando a sua moralidade, que pediu que nós assinássemos, e recusa que qualquer outra, em termos diferentes, seja enviada. Não podemos, portanto, fazer nada, para além de Morgan Forster [E.M. Forster] ter escrito uma pequena carta, bastante cómica, que me pediu que assinasse: de modo que eu me acho, eu, a ser porta-voz do safismo.

Na última carta aqui incluída, datada de 1936, Woolf vocifera também contra Gisele Freund, fotógrafa que imortalizou Simone de Beauvoir e Frida Kahlo com os seus retratos, dizendo que tem horror a ver-se “assim espetada na ponta de uma estaca, feita o objecto de todos os olhares.” Que diria ela hoje em dia, se visse o seu rosto estampado em sacolas, canecas e agendas?

Sabes que essa maldita Gisele Freund me disse, com a maior das calmas, que está em vias de mostrar essas péssimas fotografias a quem quiser vê-las quando eu lhe tinha expressamente pedido que não o fizesse?

Por acaso, não concordo, acho-as cheias de classe.
A quem interessar a correspondência amorosa de VW e Sackeville-West, parece-me uma aposta mais segura a edição da Relógio d’Água, mais completa, com notas de rodapé, bem como cartas de Vita e excertos dos diários de Woolf para cotejo. Esta edição, além de curta e confusa, padece do grande mal do aportuguesamento dos nomes próprios (Leonardo, Julião, etc.), mas com esta minha mania de deixar os livros vir até mim, foi com este que, por acaso, me cruzei.

Como eu teimo em dizer, para ser bom, um romance precisa de dar a impressão, mesmo antes de ser iniciado, que nunca chegará a ser escrito: que não se pode senão vê-lo; de tal maneira que, durante 9 meses, se viva no desespero e que seja apenas quando se esqueceu tudo o que se queria fazer, que o livro se torne, enfim, tolerável. Garanto-te que antes de escritos, todos os meus livros eram de primeira água.

[Kirstine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vita and Virginia met in December of 1922, and not long after they begun a friendship, that turned into an intimacy - at times sexual, but most of the time not - that would last until Virginia's suicide in 1941.

Their letters to each other bear witness to this intimacy. Here they share everyday events, thoughts on writing, on books (their own and others), but also a longing, a yearning, for each other.

There's a case to be made that what Vita and Virginia felt for each other transcended the normal affair one would have, and many of those affairs Vita ended up having with other women while she knew Virginia. Theirs was not a fascination only, of bodies or sexual desire, it was also a fascination with the other, as a woman, an artist and as a person in the world.

Virginia seems fascinated with Vitas self-assurance, her dominance, and her womanliness. And also, the foreword suggest, a craving for Vitas maternal instinct, as Virginia had grown up largely without a mother.

Vita, on the other hand, seems fascinated with Virginia The Writer, the Artist and the genius, as well as the childlike aspect of her. It was, at times, perhaps, a game of dominance and compliance.

At least they seem to desire something from the other, that goes beyond the physical and beyond being in love. Which might also explain why, although Vita had other affairs with other women, Virginia was never abandoned.

Their letters showcase the intelligence, wit and humour of both, as well as their literary prowess. Virginia especially seems to be able to peer through the letters and into Vitas inner thoughts. Their letters are always a delight, and often moving, touching and simply beautiful:

"I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite desperate human way. [...] It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan't make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this - But oh my dear, I can't be clever and stand-offish with you: i love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don't love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don't really resent it."

But these letters also show us a deep love and appreciation of the other. They marked and formed each other in a myriad of ways. And Virginia ends up writing Orlando a story about Vita. Vita who seemed, all her life, to struggle with the fact of being woman, which meant she could never inherit her family's estate, Knole, which instead went to her uncle. In Orlando Virginia "rights" that wrong, by making Orlando first a man and then a woman, thereby giving Vita in fiction, what she could not gain in real life.

Vita, more so than Virginia, seemed to struggle with sexuality and gender. Both of them seemed to exist outside of what was the norm, but especially Vita. Vita, whose bisexuality was far from accepted by society, and who felt the shame of being a woman in that her inheritance had been taken from her. This struggle between the "feminine" and "masculine" might have obscured the real Vita, the one that could have gotten to the depths of Virginia. Both Vita and her husband, Harold Nicholson, had affairs with both men and women, and didn't seem to mind much when the other found someone new. Harold, at one point, writes to Virginia:

"I am glad that Vita has come under an influence so stimulating and so sane... You need never worry about my having any feelings except a longing that Vita's life should be as rich and sincere as possible. I loathe jealousy as I loathe all forms of disease."

Their love was progressive, as, I think, was the love between Virginia and Vita. It seemed to transcend whatever got between them, be it other women or disagreements. Theirs seems to be a deep, devoted love. Many of their letters bear the mark of their longing, sometimes physical, sometimes just a longing of the mind of the other.

As much as they were fascinated with particular aspects of the other - The Woman, The Artist, The Genius - they also simply loved each other deeply and seemed to need each other in a very human way.

Their letters are some of my favorite things in the world. A great argument for keeping the epistolary tradition alive.

[Rhian · Rating 5 out of 5]

It feels rude to rate a book made up entirely of personal letters and diaries never intended for publication like this, but here we go. It is a fascinating historical text, beautifully collected and expertly edited. It is in turns funny and heartbreaking, and unerringly human.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I also Fell in Love with them

[Ярослава]

Листування Вірджинії Вулф і Віти Севілл-Вест, укладене в максимально цілісну любовну історію (тобто доповнене тематично релевантними щоденниковими записами і листами до інших людей - і з пропущеними частинами листів, які не про стосунки); з прикольною передмовою Елісон Бекдел, доступною онлайн тут.
Прикольно комбінувати читання "Місячного каменя" Сйона (де месідж зокрема такий, що щасливі квір-історії в певні епохи - це falsified self-exculpatory fantasies мейнстриму) з реальними квір-історіями з тієї самої епохи - нещасливими не через гендерну комплектацію учасників, а просто тому, що люди в принципі складні мудаки, конституційно не дуже призначені для щастя)))

Звичайно, треба наполювати і якесь повніше видання листів, але така тематична підбірка читається як цілком добра проза людей, які вміють складати слова в речення, з сюжетом і драмою, де дуже скептичне перше знайомство (ВВ про ВСВ: "Not much to my severer taste – florid, moustached, parakeet coloured, with all the supple ease of aristocracy, but not the wit of the artist") швидко переростає в романтизацію іншої. Вірджинія Вулф, звичайно, краща письменниця з них двох, тому вона сама виглядає складноукомплектованою на всю голову людиною, від якої треба тікати чимшвидше, зате Віта Секвілл-Вест в її розповідях - просто епічна героїня, навколо якої оживає історія.
Скажімо, от як ВВ у щоденнику описує візит у маєток ВСВ: "You perambulate miles of galleries; skip endless treasures – chairs that Shakespeare might have sat on – tapestries, pictures, floors made of the halves of oaks [...] All these ancestors and centuries, and silver and gold, have bred a perfect body. She is stag like, or race horse like, save for the face, which pouts, and has no very sharp brain. But as a body hers is perfection".
І в іншому щоденниковому записі: "There is her maturity and full breastedness: her being so much in full sail on the high tides, where I am coasting down backwaters; her capacity I mean to take the floor in any company, to represent her country, to visit Chatsworth, to control silver, servants, chow dogs; her motherhood (but she is a little cold and offhand with her boys), her being in short (what I have never been) a real woman".
І ще в іншому: "her ancestresses had walked so on the snow with their great dogs bounding by them. All the centuries seemed lit up, the past expressive, articulate; not dumb and forgotten". Загалом, видно, як з цього проростає "Орландо".
Але - навіть поза захопленою призмою перспективи ВВ - мені здається, що Віта Севілл-Вест мусила б бути якоюсь лайфстайл-коучкою чи бодай давати майстеркласи з тайм-менеджменту, бо це ж треба вміти так жити: ходити на хайкінг в Італії до того, як це стало модно, і їздити машиною Іраном, і засаджувати сади, і вести господарство у древньому маєтку, і заводити щотижня по новому роману, і при цьому писати книжки, частину з яких перевидають навіть за сто років. Тут навіть при своєму безподієвому нудному житті не завжди встигаєш вкластися в дедлайни, а люди он як уміли жити!

Стереоскопічний ефект від поєднання щоденників, листів між ВВ і ВСВ і їхніх листів іншим людям прямо дуже ефектно підсвітлює всі драми - скажімо, той напряжний ранній етап "любить-не любить" чи, що гірше, "люблю-не люблю", на якому у своїх щоденниках чи листах до інших людей вони синхронно пишуть: нє-нє, от я не закохана, але "she loves me, which flatters and pleases me" (ВСВ) і "Am I in love with her? But what is love? Her being ‘in love’ with me, excites and flatters" (ВВ). Ну і всю душу висотує цей контраст між людиною, яка живе у світі, і людиною, яка живе в голові. ВВ - людина зі складною емоційною палітрою і ментальною географією, сильні почуття їй даються десь так само легко, як стоматологічна операція, вона намацує обриси емоцій, як рану від вирваного зуба - через болючу відсутність: "She is doomed to go to Persia; and I mind the thought so much (thinking to lose sight of her for five years) that I conclude I am genuinely fond of her". І тільки це дає якусь визначеність: "I’m settling down to wanting you, doggedly, dismally, faithfully – I hope that pleases you. It’s damned unpleasant for me".
І ВСВ - яка таки краще вміє жити - зчитує цю специфіку: "she is very very fond of me, and says she was so unhappy when I went to Persia that it startled and terrified her. I don’t think she is accustomed to emotional storms, she lives too much in the intellect and imagination. Most human beings take emotional storms as a matter of course".
Цікаво стежити, як це спілкування тягнеться - змінюючись у різні формати - через багато років. А крім, так би мовити, сюжету, в книжці просто багато прекрасних формулювань - скажімо, ось який милий спосіб висловити захват: "She is a genius and l would carry a thousand hair-shedding dogs to the gates of Hell for her did she wish it!"
Загалом, дуже читабельно.

[Yolanda (dinsunllibre) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tot i saber que de per si ja soc una enamorada de les novel·les epistolars i de les correspondències entre autors/es, no era conscient de la necessitat que tenia de llegir aquesta compilació fins que ho he fet. QUINA ABSOLUTA MERAVELLA! ❤️‍🩹

Òbviament, a la Virginia la coneixia, tot i que jo només li he llegit l'assaig "una cambra pròpia" i això que per casa tenc, des de fa uns anys, "cap al far", però era una figura que m'impossava tant, que mai m'acabava de decidir a llegir-la. No obstant això, després d'aquesta lectura tenc la necessitat de fer-ho, la vull conèixer més com a escriptora i no només a ella, sinó que també se m'ha despertat la curiositat per la Vita, una dona que desconeixia per complet. I és que sí, potser llegir aquestes cartes és fer una mica d'intrusisme dins les seves vides més personals, però, com veieu, a mi m'han servit per obrir-me tot un món.

Quant al recull, voleu saber què hi trobareu? Doncs hi trobareu la correspondència entre ambdues autores al llarg de 21 anys. I també hi trobareu una relació d'amor, sí, però també d'amistat, de respecte i d'absoluta admiració de l'una envers l'altra. Coneixereu com aquesta relació evoluciona al llarg dels anys, veureu els alts i baixos que travessen, però sobretot hi veureu la importància que van arribar a tenir una dins la vida de l'altra, i no només en l'àmbit personal, també en l'àmbit literari.

Si vos soc sincera, m'hagués encantat poder-vos-en xerrar abans, però crec que si us animeu a llegir-lo, el millor que podeu fer és anar-ho fent com jo he fet, és a dir, pausadament, assaborint tot el que s'expliquen i es diuen, gaudint i patint amb ella i esperant, tal i com feien elles, el moment de l'arribada de la següent carta.

Així que bé, com veieu per mi ha estat un sí rotund i pens, sincerament, que el millor que us puc dir és que aneu ràpidament a fer-vos amb ell i us endinseu dins la vida d'aquestes dues autores.

P.D.: Permeteu-me fer un petit apunt sobre aquesta edició cuidadíssima que ha fet la gent de la ela geminada, és preciosa! I la portada, uf, la portada. Com més la mir, més m'agrada!

[Liam O'Leary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Video Review

This is my 7th advanced reader copy (ARC) review. This means I received this ebook for free, in exchange for this review by Netgalley. I'm not financially motivated, as I read library books, so I only read ARCs I actually think will be good enough for me to rate and review honestly.

Better and longer than I expected. Alison Bechdel's foreword was great, and I think it will attract the right kinds of readers to this important archive for romance between women in literature.

This book is important because it most clearly shows the discourse between Virginia and Vita, and their respective diary entries, and shows how this relationship heavily inspired Virginia Woolf's writing. The same may be true for the writing of Vita Sackville-West, who I've yet to read.

I do wonder whether these were intended by the authors as 'love' letters, as suggested by the cover. Love is not always present here. It surely emerges, but it's debatable for whom and for how long! Virginia was afraid to use the word love in her letters, and Vita perhaps was too unafraid to use it. This one-sidedness creates a great tension in their letters that makes it worthy of being an epistolary novel. Both women were married to men who they loved, but in their letters it wasn't clear how much their romance was against these mononormative or heteronormative conventions. It seems like they were very intimate companions, and their love seemed at times sometimes sisterly or motherly, sometimes of the intellectual or social admiration of how one might love a teacher, but at other times very much like romantic intimacy. I don't think social norms were censoring their expression of love in their letters, they are both very expressive and candid writers which makes them a joy to read.

Not to cast a shadow, but was there not a conflict of interest here in Virginia being Vita's prospective publisher? Might Vita not be wooing Virginia with some small professional interest, given that, when Vita stops writing poetry she also stops writing letters to Virginia? That Vita may have ingratiated herself with Hogarth Press by continually flattering Virginia's writing, and fishing for compliments for her own? I'm not here to make any big accusations, I just find it interesting to see how their relationship morphs with their impression of each other's writing, it seems more than chance. But this whole written correspondence is so deep and long that there are surely things that could be seen more clearly now about the method of how these authors write now than ever before.

There's definitely many complex dynamics between these writers that each reader will experience and interpret in their own way.

That Virginia, like many other classic female authors, was in continually bad health and died before their time is sad. I think the correspondence adds a new glimpse to that too. Having not read Virginia Woolf's diaries or letters before, I was surprised at how poor her health was for most of her writing life.

As a straight man something I should clarify, if only to myself for myself, is why I was particularly interested in reading romantic letters between two women from almost 100 years ago. The notion might be absurd to some people, and my reasons might be relevant justifications for other readers who do not identify as themselves as LGBT. Simply, Virginia Woolf's writing is marvelously distinct and expressive even today and in comparison to all, and so, seeing how she would write private letters to someone she is passionate about is interesting to me. I read to get a better understanding of people, and the tender intimacy of love letters between female writers is strangely touching in an era where heteronormative relationship dynamics are so brash and unsociable that quite rarely out of a fairly established relationship do we see a slow and innocent courtship, the 'little steps toward someone', that these letters resemble.

[крсн · Rating 5 out of 5]

screaming... crying... throwing up... i want to carve this whole book into myself

"I'm setting down to wanting you, doggedly, dismally, faithfully - I hope that pleases you. It's damn unpleasant for me."

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be read in small portions, as most epistolary (non) fiction should be, probably. A well curated set of letters spanning most of the love affair and later life-long friendship between Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. It's interesting and moving to see the relationship evolve with teasing, jealousy, one-sided idolizing and, later, comfortable friendship, all making appearances. In short, not that different from many other relationships but this one has been beautifully documented.

[Sónia Santos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este compêndio de cartas, e algumas entradas de diário, torna-se num verdadeiro documento histórico e social, pela época e sociedade que retratam e que as envolve.

E levanta-nos uma pequeníssima ponta do véu sobre duas das mais importantes personalidades femininas dos inícios do século XX, Virginia Woolf e Vita Sackville-West. Não só sobre a sua relação amorosa, mas também os seus traços de personalidade, as suas lutas e dramas, o seu quotidiano, ou as suas criações literárias.

“Acho a psicologia da guerra muito estranha - não achas? Até ao meio-dia sou uma perfeita cobarde, tenho medo dos ataques aéreos, das bombas, dos gases, etc. -, depois do meio-dia sou toda corajosa e britânica - e continuo corajosa até à manhã seguinte - quando começa tudo de novo, na mesma sequência assustadora de medo, terror e retraída cobardia.”
Carta de Vita para Virginia, 25 de Agosto de 1939

[hima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can I give 6 stars? 10? What are star ratings anyway to the beauty and joy of these letters?

[Paya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kogoś dziwi 5 gwiazdek? Nie. I słusznie.
Ach, no po prostu kocham te listy, to drugi raz, jak je czytam, pierwsze poznałam w tłumaczeniu ponad 10 lat temu, które miałam z biblioteki, a które teraz chodzi za miliony monet na allegro. No ale to wydanie ma piękny wstęp Alison Bechdel, w którym autorka także przygląda się swojemu odbiorowi tych listów na przestrzeni lat i postanowiłam, że ja też tak będę. Może znów do nich wrócę za 10 lat, będę wtedy w wieku Virginii, kiedy poznała Vitę i znów inaczej spojrzę na te listy, których autorki świetnie się do siebie dopasowują, z biegiem upływu lat, nadając miłości coraz to nowe znaczenie.

[lee ⚢ · Rating 5 out of 5]

never read such a personal, honest, real book about two women so deeply in love.. the longing for each other, just wow. i fell in love with them both, i think. Oh and virginia has my heart. sapphic lov . go read it y'all!! x

[Olga Kowalska (WielkiBuk) · Rating 5 out of 5]

✒️VIRGINIA WOOLF: mistrzyni modernizmu brytyjskiego, należy do kanonu literatury angielskiej, intelektualistka z klasy wyższej, która należała do bohemy swoich czasów;
📚 Dzieła, które warto poznać: "Pani Dalloway", "Do latarni morskiej", "Orlando";

✒️ VITA SACKVILLE-WEST: popularna pisarka brytyjska swoich czasów, arystokratka o bujnej osobowości, która przeszła do historii nie tylko jako autorka poezji i powieści, ale twórczyni zjawiskowych ogrodów.

❤️ Virginia była wrażliwa, delikatna, o bogatej wyobraźni i niezwykłym talencie. Vita była barwna, głośna, nieokiełznana, kochała towarzystwo i podroże. Poznały się w 1922, pierwszą korespondencję wymieniły na początku stycznia 1923 roku.

Obie były mężatkami, Vita byla także matką, ale! Jako, że miały usposobienie bohemiczne (a eksperymenty pośród klas wyższych były w modzie), to nie stroniły od romansów, również, a nawet szczególnie, z płcią przeciwną. Ba, związek Vity i jej męża Harolda był oficjalnie uznany za otwarty. Mieli wpływy, mieli pieniądze, mieli koneksje - mogli sobie na to pozwolić bez utraty reputacji. Relacja Virginii i jej męża była szczególna, ze względu na bolesne doświadczenia pisarki z lat dorastania. Obie lubiły i ceniły towarzystwo kobiet.

💌 Związek Vity i Virginii był wyrazem wzajemnej fascynacji, nie tyle cielesnej, co umysłowej.
Vita podziwiała talent swojej przyjaciółki, wychwalała jej twórczość i zachwycała się intelektem. Ostatnie o niej słowa "Taki piękny umysł, taka piękna dusza".
Virginia była względem twórczości Vity często krytyczna, ale podziwiała jej charakter, jego barwność i umiejętność odnajdywania się w każdej sytuacji. "Vita naprawdę trzyma życie w garści (...)".

✒️ Ich korespondencja (między sobą, ale nie tylko), fragmenty wpisów dzienników, ukazują ich intymną, wyjątkową więź. Pełne są czułostek, wspomnień, ale przede wszystkim zabawnych anegdot z ich środowiska, ploteczek na temat towarzystwa, zmian kulturowych, społecznych i historycznych, ale też wzajemnej rosnącej fascynacji, bliskości, czasami zazdrości, szacunku.

🌟 Uwielbiam takie ukryte w listach i pamiętnikach ciekawostki! A tutaj jest ich mnóstwo! Poczułam się jak część tej elitarnej śmietanki swoich czasów 🙌🏻

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look, I am still super annoyed with the editors of this collection, but the letters that are here are great. Review to come!

* * *
Original: Ordered Vita's letters to various people, these letters arrived first. You know what sucks? Virginia's letters are only excerpted from! Who the hell thought THAT was a good plan? It's maddening! Were there copyright issues? Either way: LAME. Guess I'll have to order VW's letters from the era...

[Lex · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

I have (or did have) so many things to say about this but they wouldn't make sense if I put them all together, so review to come later.

******

'Look on it, if you like, as copy, - as I believe you look upon everything, human relationships included.' - Vita to Virginia, 1924

Reading this book was such a unique experience for me (I know I need to stop saying this about every book, but it's true) and I actually experienced what can only be described as a book hangover whilst reading the book. I was so immersed in the lives of Vita and Virginia that I almost forgot any other book existed. I was genuinely so confused when - at about the 100 page mark - the question of what I was going to read next popped into my head that the answer I gave myself was 'nothing'. The possibility of following up something so real and so emotional seemed ridiculous to me.

Before this, I had never read or been interested in reading any book composed purely of correspondence between two people, but I picked this up because of my interest in a) Virginia Woolf b) queer history and c) the lives of authors. And I am so glad that happened to come across this.

The way that Vita and Virginia communicate with each other is so....I don't even know how to describe it. Whilst reading this, you are a spectator of something so deeply personal that you have no choice but to get lost in it and really live alongside the authors. You can see the fluctuations of their relationship and what causes them, you can see how the way they interact with each other affects the way they interact with other people, and most of all you can see how precious their relationship was.

It feels so strange to say all of this, because of the fact that they were real people whose lives stretched far beyond the boundaries of these 280 pages. I won't say any more in that vein because it would just get repetitive, but what I will say is that if you are even remotely interested in queer history, Virginia Woolf, or both, you should read this.

Also, if you haven't already read this and are planning to, I would recommend watching the film Vita and Virginia first (I know recommending book lovers the film version doesn't work 50% of the time, but bear with me here). For me watching the film first helped me get a fuller picture of their lives, but if you do watch it after you have read the book you might find it slightly disappointing simply because it is completely different to their letters (it stops quite abruptly at the point when Virginia finishes Orlando, rather than continuing to 1941).

I am also doing an informal reading challenge whereby I read more lgbtq+ books than usual for Pride month. So far I have read:

Olivia by Dorothy Strachey*
Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West: Love Letters

*If someone could tell me how to hyperlink this review, it would be greatly appreciated.

[Georgina Monk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Debating which of these literary geniuses I would rather fall in love with me quickly turned into crying over Virginia Woolf on Valentine’s Day.

[currentlyreadingbynat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Letters: Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West is a beautifully curated collection that offers a glimpse into the layered and often hard-to-define relationship between two remarkable women. The title might suggest a sweeping romance, but what you get instead is something much more complex—part flirtation, part deep friendship, part intellectual companionship, with affection that ebbed and flowed over time.

This isn’t a comprehensive or academic edition—the letters are trimmed down for readability, often without clear markers where text has been removed, so something to keep in mind. But for a general reader, it works. Both women are such vivid, entertaining writers that you’re really here for their voices anyway, and the selection does a good job capturing the emotional tone of their connection.

What stood out to me was how much of their love coexisted with their commitments to others. Both women had strong marriages and other relationships, yet still found something singular in each other. If you’re looking for clarity or simple labels, you won’t find it here—but that’s what makes it interesting. It’s intimate, complicated, and quietly fascinating.

[Lula Mae · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 estrelles... no és que sigui una literatura elevadíssima ni que tingui una estructura sorprenent, però és tan íntim sense ser explícit, acollidor, intens, que no puc donar-li menys
unes ganes terribles de rellegir l'Orlando, la Sra. Dalloway, de llegir Al far i Les ones, de llegir Els eduardians, All passion spent, fins i tot Viatge a Teheran
una correspondència, unes vides envoltades de viatges, llibres, llibertat intel·lectual, unes vides privilegiades, no cal oblidar-ho, i unes persones (que no personatges) a qui desitjaries haver conegut