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Country Notes in Wartime
Sackville-West's column "Country Notes", describing her life in the country (with an emphasis on gardening), appeared regularly in the New Statesman and Nation. This is a collection of her columns from 1938 and 1939, including a few on country life in France and Italy, abundantly illustrated with black-and-white photographs by Bryan Westwood (1909-1990) and Norman Charles Westwood (1912-2008).
- GenresBiography Memoir
85 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1939
About the author
Vita Sackville-West
165 books502 followersNovels 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
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August 29, 2017Recommendation on BookishPrincess BookTube Channel - 7/20/2017
March 5, 2021
I found this, appropriately enough, in a Charing Cross Road book shop in London many years ago and came across it again while trying to go through my bookshelves hoping to weed out a few. I didn’t make much progress and this one won’t be leaving the house anytime soon.
During her lifetime Vita Sackville-West was a prolific writer well known for her poetry, novels, short stories, biographies and non-fiction as well as her garden writing. She had love affairs with many women including Virginia Woolf, but was devoted to her husband Harold Nicholson who, like her, was also bi-sexual. Together they restored a rundown Elizabethan mansion, Sissinghurst Castle, transforming its grounds into one of the most beautiful gardens in England.
In a letter to Virginia Woolf, Vita once wrote “It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by” and that’s what she did when she retreated to her private writing room located in one of the castle’s turreted towers. Her love of gardening and the English countryside is reflected in this slim collection that’s taken from her personal notes and diary entries during the first year of WWII. It’s filled with observations about the beauty of the changing seasons as well as her grief because of “the prospect of devastation hanging over us.”
She writes about making her nighttime rounds to see that the blackout is complete and how the daytime air-raid sirens interrupted work in the fields. She describes how strange it was to see “land girls” working on the farms instead of young men, and how, while writing at night, she often heard the heavy tramp of men’s feet on the stairs as they climbed to the top of the tower which was being used by the home guard as a lookout post. “Seventy-five steps they climb, dwindling into silence, and when I go out later I see two figures outlined against the moon behind the parapet.”
But through it all, it is her deep and abiding love of the English countryside that comes across so clearly and makes this such a delightful little book to read. Anyone who loves reading about England during WWII will probably love this book – especially if they are gardeners.
During her lifetime Vita Sackville-West was a prolific writer well known for her poetry, novels, short stories, biographies and non-fiction as well as her garden writing. She had love affairs with many women including Virginia Woolf, but was devoted to her husband Harold Nicholson who, like her, was also bi-sexual. Together they restored a rundown Elizabethan mansion, Sissinghurst Castle, transforming its grounds into one of the most beautiful gardens in England.
In a letter to Virginia Woolf, Vita once wrote “It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by” and that’s what she did when she retreated to her private writing room located in one of the castle’s turreted towers. Her love of gardening and the English countryside is reflected in this slim collection that’s taken from her personal notes and diary entries during the first year of WWII. It’s filled with observations about the beauty of the changing seasons as well as her grief because of “the prospect of devastation hanging over us.”
She writes about making her nighttime rounds to see that the blackout is complete and how the daytime air-raid sirens interrupted work in the fields. She describes how strange it was to see “land girls” working on the farms instead of young men, and how, while writing at night, she often heard the heavy tramp of men’s feet on the stairs as they climbed to the top of the tower which was being used by the home guard as a lookout post. “Seventy-five steps they climb, dwindling into silence, and when I go out later I see two figures outlined against the moon behind the parapet.”
But through it all, it is her deep and abiding love of the English countryside that comes across so clearly and makes this such a delightful little book to read. Anyone who loves reading about England during WWII will probably love this book – especially if they are gardeners.
March 23, 2022
Especially as our thoughts and hearts are with the Ukrainians at this most terrible time for them, Vita-Sackville West has written words that helped me have a perspective of one in the throes of a war. It is a lovely little book and I’ve been reading and re-reading it a small chapter at a time. Highly recommend this one.
January 20, 2023
Worth reading for the first three vignettes alone, but do yourself a favor and read the whole book.
October 26, 2025
10/26/25 This was my first introduction to Vita's writing, and it led me to purchase three more books containing collections of her columns. "Country Notes in Wartime" is a small volume, packed with the most enjoyable reading. Reaching the end of the book was melancholy. I was fortunate to find a first edition of the 1941 Doubleday imprint of this title in very good condition, including the dust jacket.
January 17, 2017
A little more about gardening than I thought it would be, but engagingly written.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews