Society seductress who slept with both her bridesmaids: An erotic poem that lay hidden for 95 years casts new light on the love life of novelist Vita Sackville-West. Here her grandson unlocks the family secrets...

• Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson married 100 years ago this year
  
• Each of them knew they were homosexual but neither told the other
  
• A poem, written in French, by Vita was published for the first time this week
  
• It throws a sudden sharp light on Vita's nature and her own idea of herself

By Adam Nicolson
PUBLISHED: 21:13 GMT, 3 May 2013 | UPDATED: 23:37 GMT, 3 May 2013


A hundred years ago this year, on October 1, 1913, my grandparents, Vita Sackville-West and Harold
Nicolson (right in 1960) were married. It was not to be a conventional marriage. Both Vita (centre with
her lover Rosamund Grosvenor) and Harold (far left) had many love affairs with other people, hers almost
always with women, his invariably with men.

A hundred years ago this year, on October 1, 1913, my grandparents, Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, were married. It was quite a to-do, at Knole in Kent, the great house where Vita had been brought up and where the Sackvilles had been in residence since the early 17th century.

Six hundred wedding presents were laid out on tables in the Great Hall. Only 26 people could fit in the little private chapel but hundreds, including four duchesses, came to the party afterwards. Vita wore a golden wedding dress. She had two bridesmaids, one of whom she was having an affair with at the time. The other, her new husband's sister, she would have a long affair with 15 years later.

It was not to be a conventional marriage. Both Vita and Harold had many love affairs with other people during it, hers almost always with women, his invariably with men. Yet, despite this near constant infidelity — or perhaps because of it — their marriage was undoubtedly one of the deepest possible love for each other.

When they were engaged, early in 1912, each of them knew they were homosexual, but neither told the other. Homosexual acts were illegal at the time, but their marriage was not an act of concealment or conventionality. They had quite simply fallen in love with each other.

Harold was 25, the son of a diplomat who had been Ambassador in St Petersburg, and who had joined the diplomatic service himself. He had first met Vita at a small dinner party in London 18 months before.

'He arrived late,' she remembered, 'very young and alive and charming, and the first remark I ever heard him make was “what fun!” when he was asked by his hostess to act the host.


....more at link
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rets-.html

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

How interesting. I had first assumed it was a marriage of convenience. This story reminds me a little of the movie "Henry & June", about Henry James, his wife June and Anais Nin. The story takes place in Paris in the 30's.

I wonder if there paths crossed?



Here's another snippet:

Vita began to dress as a man, calling herself 'Julian', and walking the streets of London and Paris as a wounded soldier arm in arm with her lover, Violet. 'You could do anything with me,' Violet wrote to her, 'or rather Julian could. I love Julian overwhelmingly, devastatingly, possessively, incoherently, insatiably, passionately, despairingly — also coquettishly, flirtatiously and frivolously.'

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there's a sweetness there