Lady Sackville: A biography

by Susan Mary Alsop

Ist U.S. edition, 1978 Doubleday & Co. Bio of the illegitemate daughter of a Spanish dancer who became the mother of the author Vita Sackville-West and the grandmother of Nigel Nicholson.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

273 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1983

About the author

From Wikipedia:

Susan Mary Alsop (née Jay; June 19, 1918 – August 18, 2004) was an American writer and socialite active in Washington, D.C., political circles. She was the wife of columnist Joseph Alsop and a descendant of founding father John Jay. Her Georgetown home hosted dignitaries and publishers during the 1960s and 1970s ranging from John F. Kennedy, Phil Graham, Katharine Graham, and Isaiah Berlin, earning her the nickname "the grand dame of Washington society."[1][2]

Reviews

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't usually read biographies, but I found this very interesting. I had no knowledge of this woman, but had heard of her daughter, who is famous in more than one area. Victoria Sackville-West had a life that was lived around the globe and in very changing times. The author interested me enough in her life that I want to know more. Especially interesting were the 2 major trials her family lived through, so they would bear more research. I am also keen to look into her daughter Vita's life. I have already checked some Wikipedia articles about her Bloomsbury connections and the Sissinghurst garden. Needless to say, there was a lot of money thrown around the pages and a lot of famous people, from royalty to Rodin. Would anyone out there today make for such reading?

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this on purpose before I read Portrait of a Marriage (Vita Sackville-West & Harold Nicholson) so I have a more favourable image of her than if I had done it the other way around. There is no doubt that Lady Sackville was a little weird (what was with that eating outdoors even when you had to wrap up in blankets and hot water bottles?) but a lot of her behaviour sounds more like a deep seated insecurity that would easily be explained by the loss of her mother when she was only 8, by having the neighbours keep their children away because the Sackville-West children were illegitimate, then being dumped into a convent because the English family didn't want anything to do with them, then shifted to an English convent so that she could learn English and finally at 17 being dumped into her father's legation at Washington to act as his hostess. That she pulled that off brilliantly doesn't change the fact that her childhood was most insecure. It wasn't helped by the fact that "old" Lionel was foolish enough to answer an apparent request from someone for advice on voting in the upcoming presidential election. That is just such a dangerous thing to do and it is not surprising that Lionel lost his position and career. He was fortunate to have inherited the title at this point so they were able to go to Knole to "look after affairs." It was not long after this that Victoria was married and a person can only be deemed insecure who marries a man with the identical name to that of her father. She doesn't seem to have been the ideal wife for the younger Sackville-West but that is no excuse for his behaviour in bringing his mistresses into their home. I don't get a clear image of young Lionel in this book but he doesn't seem to have been a very outgoing sort of person and he certainly didn't appreciate the way Victoria handled the books. The modernisations were more than the estate's income could cover but they were certainly necessary.
Mrs. Alsop was certainly taken with Victoria's character but she appears to be fair with the facts so it is not difficult to deal with bias. She says that she feels that Lionel was trying to make life so unpleasant that Victoria would leave Knole of her own volition and that is possible. It is unfortunate that the breaking point came at the same time that their daughter Vita was having an intense lesbian love affair and Victoria was having to come to terms with those facts of life. She was definitely unstable after this although it appears to have been spasmodic.
There was so much hiding of facts in her day and even down to the time of the writing of this book that you almost have to translate into "modern" terminology.
Enjoyed this glimpse into the past of some very interesting people.

[Yooperprof · Rating 3 out of 5]

Victoria, Lady Sackville (1862-1936) was rich, vain, and self-centered - and not particularly accomplished in the arts, politics, or culture. But you may be interested in reading about her colorful life because she was both representative of her time and class while at the same she possessed unusually colorful and dramatic qualities that make her interesting and distinctive.

Lady Sackville was the daughter of a successful Victorian diplomat and a Spanish dancer - the alluring Pepita! Her parents never married - her mother having been already married at the time of her birth - and the stigma of so-called "illegitimacy" trailed her in the first three decades of her life. In spite of the social "mark" of her birth "outside wedlock," she served as the hostess at the British Embassy at Washington D.C. in the 1880s, when her father served as British Ambassador there from 1881 to 1888. (It was fascinating to read about the diplomatic scene in the Chester Arthur and Grover Cleveland administrations.)

Her skills at entertaining and keeping men happy served her well when she (and her father) returned to Britain. She made a match of love with her first cousin, Lionel Sackville-West, and for the first ten years of their marriage they were blissfully, and unusually, happy together. Later, as their marriage began to evolve into a less intimate relationship, Victoria became "muse" and "romantic spirit" for a series of powerful "alpha males," among them the art collector Sir John Murray Scott (1847-1912), the American financier J.P. Morgan (1837-1913), sculptor August Rodin (1840-1917), and finally British architect Edward Luytens (1869-1944). The author of this biographer, Susan Mary Alsop, had access to Lady Sackville's unpublished diaries, and she uses them skillfully in portraying her charms and pleasantries.

Lady Sackville is also interesting because for many years she lived in, and helped to preserve, one of the great English Country Houses, Knole in Kent. Moreover, she was the mother of poet, novelist, and biographer Vita Sackville-West, and had a very complex and difficult relationship with her which brought out both her character strengths and flaws.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really was a well done biography. What a story. At a time when being illegitimate usually meant social banishment she was allowed to accompany her father to be his hostess when he was sent to Washington, D.C. to be the British Ambassador. She transformed the Embassy and became one of the leading women in D.C. and she was only 19 when she got there. Her story is of a woman that really went from almost illiteracy to being the wife of a Lord and running a massive estate called Knole. Not all of her life was rosy, especially in her later years when the husband openly took on mistresses. The last straw was bringing one home to Knole so she moved out. Can't blame her for that one. The family allowed access to letters and her diaries which really helped give a clue to her mindset during different periods of her life.

[Harrison Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another find at a thrift store, this 1978 biography traces the life of Victoria Sackville-West, the mother of Vita Sackville-West. Although the daughter is now more widely known, her mother led a fascinating life in her own right. The "illegitimate" daughter of a British diplomat, Victoria traveled to the United States to be the hostess for her unmarried father during the time her father was UK Ambassador to the US during the Chester Arthur administration. Notwithstanding her status, she "became the most popular belle of the late Victorian Age," as noted by the back cover of the book. Her marriage to her cousin, heir to the Knole estate in Britain, brought her into tremendous wealth. In a time with so much interest in the "Gilded Age" and "Downton Abbey," this book was an interesting and worthwhile read of what really happened during these years.

[Bjipson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel as though Julian Fellowes may have stolen some of Sackville's life experiences when he came up with plot points for Downton Abbey. She repeated said, and it is clearly true, that her life was like a novel. She was a charming and beautiful Gilded Age woman who served as her father's social partner when he was the British ambassador to Washington DC, when on to marry a devastatingly handsome lord, live in the huge Knole estate, and was mother to Vita Sackville-West, author and lover of Virginia Woolf. Definitely a fun read for any fan of books about the world of the British upper class in the early 20th century era.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lady Sackville led quite the interesting life. Proposed to by Chester Arther, hung out J.P. Morgan, Virginia and many others. Fascinating life and a good read.

[Renata Holder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable, I confess to having skimmed some of it because I wasn't interested in THAT much detail.