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The Land
Vita Sackville-West is known as much for her creation of the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle as for her numerous novels, poems and gardening articles. Written in 1926, The Land is a nostalgic celebration of the Kentish countryside through the seasons. It won the Hawthornden Prize and sold over 100,000 copies.
108 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1926
6 people are currently reading
300 people want to read
About the author
Vita Sackville-West
130 books478 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 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 4, 2022
"The land" é uma ode a natureza, as paisagens campestres inglesas, as quatro estações e a poesia. Este longo poema relembrou-me "As quatro estações" de Vivaldi, pela sua sensibilidade e harmonia. Tratam-se de versos realmente admiráveis, adorei principalmente quando compara a criação poética ao oficio de um artesão.
Fiquei surpreendida ao descobrir que a grande amada de Virgínia Woolf foi uma popular escritora, capaz de criar poemas repletos de sentimentos. A sua vida foi repleta de momentos tão intensos e explosivos, que não imaginava Vita como poetisa de paisagens. Mas veio me despertar a vontade de conhecer outras obras suas. Esta ode foi, sem sombra de dúvida, uma das maiores surpresas deste ano. Revelando-se uma grande catarse para este tempos sombrios.
Fiquei surpreendida ao descobrir que a grande amada de Virgínia Woolf foi uma popular escritora, capaz de criar poemas repletos de sentimentos. A sua vida foi repleta de momentos tão intensos e explosivos, que não imaginava Vita como poetisa de paisagens. Mas veio me despertar a vontade de conhecer outras obras suas. Esta ode foi, sem sombra de dúvida, uma das maiores surpresas deste ano. Revelando-se uma grande catarse para este tempos sombrios.
July 18, 2023
I appreciated that the author captured Kent at a point of transition and transformation - when new farm and equipment begin to take root over the old methods and ways of doing.
March 29, 2013
Lyrical poetry about English country life that I return to every year. Set during one calendar year in Kent. So readable, even to children. So grounded and resonant and passionate in its love of the landscape and its cycles of husbandry. So delicious.
These poems were dated when they were published. And so in spite of the publication date, readers expecting Modern flavors will get none of those here. The poet took Virgil (The Georgics) for her inspiration. She looked out her window and beneath her boots and deep inside her heart for her raw materials.
Critics accused Sackville-West, the poet, of complacency along with being old-fashioned. "A poet used to reading beautiful lines," they complained, hinting that her work accomplished little more than rearranging them.
The best poetry always draws from the deepest well. I'll say no more. This is a magnificent little book to keep, and to read, for a lifetime.
These poems were dated when they were published. And so in spite of the publication date, readers expecting Modern flavors will get none of those here. The poet took Virgil (The Georgics) for her inspiration. She looked out her window and beneath her boots and deep inside her heart for her raw materials.
Critics accused Sackville-West, the poet, of complacency along with being old-fashioned. "A poet used to reading beautiful lines," they complained, hinting that her work accomplished little more than rearranging them.
The best poetry always draws from the deepest well. I'll say no more. This is a magnificent little book to keep, and to read, for a lifetime.
October 8, 2020
“The Land” is a lengthy, lyrical poem covering the Kent countryside over a period of a year. The poem begins in winter, and even in winter, there are signs of life and a new beginning. Spring begins the greening of the land. The farmer on the hill has fields that require little labor. In the valley, the farmers work rotating crops, working around the weather, and working around the rain or lack of it. They take a pride in their work and hardships and toil to make the land pay off. They look with disdain at those farming on the hill.
Summer's heat is punctuated with rain in England -- the relief from the heat and the smell of water striking the hot ground. The reader is then transported to a place where the rain does not provide relief. Sackville-West draws on her experience in the Middle East and Iran to compare the harsh desert to the lush green of England. This comparison is almost taken directly from her book Passage to Tehran. As in many of her works she draws heavily from her own experiences.
Fall is the completion of the year. The harvests and the plans for next year are gathered and formulated. The crops planted in spring are revisited in their completion and the details noted. It is also a time for cider and woodworking. All that was done since winter becomes ripe for harvest. Even the squirrels know it is time to collect food.
Although the poem concentrates on the land, the passage that appealed to me the most was the one on the constellation Orion. The constellation rises in the fall and sets in the spring. For those who spend time outdoors in the evenings and night, Orion’s march across the sky is as accurate as a calendar. It shows that more than the land changes with the time of the year. It is an example of how our view of the universe changes with time.
Sackville-West takes the reader into something deeper than a nature poem. The farmer and shepherd do not see the year as a discrete unit. To them, it is a scroll that continually loops. The reader could, also, easily fall back into the cycle by returning to the beginning of the poem.
It is a step beyond pastoral poetry and into reality. It is almost as if the reader slipped into the mind of the “ideal” farmer or shepherd. Sackville-West does not just offer descriptions; she gives the reader a three-dimensional journey. It is a virtual reality completed with words. The poem lives and breathes.
Summer's heat is punctuated with rain in England -- the relief from the heat and the smell of water striking the hot ground. The reader is then transported to a place where the rain does not provide relief. Sackville-West draws on her experience in the Middle East and Iran to compare the harsh desert to the lush green of England. This comparison is almost taken directly from her book Passage to Tehran. As in many of her works she draws heavily from her own experiences.
Fall is the completion of the year. The harvests and the plans for next year are gathered and formulated. The crops planted in spring are revisited in their completion and the details noted. It is also a time for cider and woodworking. All that was done since winter becomes ripe for harvest. Even the squirrels know it is time to collect food.
Although the poem concentrates on the land, the passage that appealed to me the most was the one on the constellation Orion. The constellation rises in the fall and sets in the spring. For those who spend time outdoors in the evenings and night, Orion’s march across the sky is as accurate as a calendar. It shows that more than the land changes with the time of the year. It is an example of how our view of the universe changes with time.
Sackville-West takes the reader into something deeper than a nature poem. The farmer and shepherd do not see the year as a discrete unit. To them, it is a scroll that continually loops. The reader could, also, easily fall back into the cycle by returning to the beginning of the poem.
It is a step beyond pastoral poetry and into reality. It is almost as if the reader slipped into the mind of the “ideal” farmer or shepherd. Sackville-West does not just offer descriptions; she gives the reader a three-dimensional journey. It is a virtual reality completed with words. The poem lives and breathes.
April 8, 2025
This is considered a book-length poem (1926) but a few poems within it are online:
The Bee-Master
https://allpoetry.com/Bee-Master
Making Cider
https://allpoetry.com/Making-Cider
The book is divided into seasons, starting with winter, and further divided into named poems--but some names repeat and sometimes one poem leads into another mid-line. I found this curious but not disruptive. Though at the beginning this might seem like nature poetry, it's actually agricultural poetry. Some of it goes so far as to be instructive in tone. Sackville-West is very aware of the tradition in which she's writing and begins the book with an epigraph from Virgil's Georgics. That distinction being made, if you don't like nature poetry, you may not like this. Yet if you do like nature poetry, you may also not like this, depending on whether you prefer your nature poetry to be of the wilder sort rather than about people working the land and with livestock. This is also very much about the English countryside.
I recently started reading my selected Wordsworth and he seems a step or two removed from the agriculture of the landscapes he walks through or gazes over. Sackville-West sounds as though she's down there with the laborers doing the work, knowing the pitfalls and the necessary timing of events and the lingo of the trades. One of the delights of the poems is their use of "technical" terms. Here is a bit from "Thatcher":
Having told the tally of the needed threaves,
He mounts his ladder, pocket full of splines,
And packs his yelms, and calls his mate a lout
If he disturb one straw from ordered lines.
Proud of his stelch, and prouder of his eaves,
Proud of his skill to thatch and awkward pent,
He is an artist with a long descent
Examples of some other named sections:
Sowing of Crops
Sheep Shearing
Threshing
Rotation of Crops
Orchards
The Wild Flowers
Fritillaries
Nocturne
Hedging and Ditching
They mostly sound dull but she manages to bring out their character and the drama that surrounds their husbandry.
This book is 104 pages but reads quite quickly--or did for me because this poetry of the land and the humans who labor to get a yield from it appeals to me, as does the chewy, interesting lingo. Love and respect shines through all of it. This book is a keeper for me. I look forward to reading it again in the future.
The Bee-Master
https://allpoetry.com/Bee-Master
Making Cider
https://allpoetry.com/Making-Cider
The book is divided into seasons, starting with winter, and further divided into named poems--but some names repeat and sometimes one poem leads into another mid-line. I found this curious but not disruptive. Though at the beginning this might seem like nature poetry, it's actually agricultural poetry. Some of it goes so far as to be instructive in tone. Sackville-West is very aware of the tradition in which she's writing and begins the book with an epigraph from Virgil's Georgics. That distinction being made, if you don't like nature poetry, you may not like this. Yet if you do like nature poetry, you may also not like this, depending on whether you prefer your nature poetry to be of the wilder sort rather than about people working the land and with livestock. This is also very much about the English countryside.
I recently started reading my selected Wordsworth and he seems a step or two removed from the agriculture of the landscapes he walks through or gazes over. Sackville-West sounds as though she's down there with the laborers doing the work, knowing the pitfalls and the necessary timing of events and the lingo of the trades. One of the delights of the poems is their use of "technical" terms. Here is a bit from "Thatcher":
Having told the tally of the needed threaves,
He mounts his ladder, pocket full of splines,
And packs his yelms, and calls his mate a lout
If he disturb one straw from ordered lines.
Proud of his stelch, and prouder of his eaves,
Proud of his skill to thatch and awkward pent,
He is an artist with a long descent
Examples of some other named sections:
Sowing of Crops
Sheep Shearing
Threshing
Rotation of Crops
Orchards
The Wild Flowers
Fritillaries
Nocturne
Hedging and Ditching
They mostly sound dull but she manages to bring out their character and the drama that surrounds their husbandry.
This book is 104 pages but reads quite quickly--or did for me because this poetry of the land and the humans who labor to get a yield from it appeals to me, as does the chewy, interesting lingo. Love and respect shines through all of it. This book is a keeper for me. I look forward to reading it again in the future.
October 21, 2025
A 100 page epic poem, influenced by the classics (Virgil, Homer etc) which depicts the seasonal changes to the nature and those who work alongside it of rural 20th century Kent. I find that there is a lot of deeply beautiful imagery conveyed through these a hundred odd pages. It seems that Sackville-West really thoroughly conveys the quirks and imperfections of nature that make it unique and comforting. However, I do find it slightly bad taste in the way that Sackville-West romanticises the rural working classes given her status, lifestyle, and class. She seems to, rather than having a pure passion and empathy towards these people, rather to find them merely objects of her fascination in the same way that a particularly beautiful garden would be to her. Still I found myself for the most part enjoying this collection even though sometimes the technical language (in reference to farming for example - where I must admit Sackville-West seems to know her stuff) loses me slightly.
September 20, 2018
Eloquent, honest, delightful. An excellent poem for farmers and gardeners to keep at the door, beside their hand tools. To be read while on long country walks or during hot summer siestas.
September 6, 2024
Great poetry and accurately describes the country and farming practices at the time.
May 9, 2025
‘Furiously I do the summer hate , Resentfully I do the summer love’ - chef’s kiss
May 31, 2025
Absolutely beautiful and enchanting poetry from the 1920's.
March 20, 2023
Reason Read: BAC, only book I could get free, TIOLI
I read this book (audio) of poetry written by Vita Sackville-West=West and narrated by Nano Nagle. The reader did a good job. This is a book that is about 2 hours and 17 min in length and is divided into 4 parts; Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. It covers nature/wildlife and farmers and farms. It’s all right. I am not a person who reads a lot of poetry. I obtained this audio from Hoopla.
I read this book (audio) of poetry written by Vita Sackville-West=West and narrated by Nano Nagle. The reader did a good job. This is a book that is about 2 hours and 17 min in length and is divided into 4 parts; Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. It covers nature/wildlife and farmers and farms. It’s all right. I am not a person who reads a lot of poetry. I obtained this audio from Hoopla.
May 21, 2011
An amazing very long poem - a rapture dedicated to the land closest to Sackville-West's heart. Tough going at times, but an excellent poem. Won several awards when it was released.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews