Lady Sackville: A Biography - Review

This biography of Lady Victoria Sackville (Vita Sackville's mother) is well worth reading. She said that her life was like a novel - it was, especially in the sense of truth being stranger than fiction.

Lady Victoria was one of the five illegitimate children of the unmarried 2nd Lord Sackville. He was a diplomat but, wherever he was posted, he kept his partner (Pepita, a Spanish dancer) and children out of the view of the embassies he worked for. Pepita died when Victoria was 9 yrs old, so she was put in a convent in France.

At the age of 18 her father became British Ambassador to the USA. Staggeringly, both the British and US governments accepted the idea that his 18 yr old daughter should go to Washington as his hostess. This proved a great success.In due course, back in England, Victoria married a cousin and, on her father's death, became Lady Sackville, the mistress of Knole in Kent. She and her husband Lionel had to fight off a very public lawsuit from relatives who tried to disinherit Lionel. Later she had to fight another lawsuit when Sir John Murray Scott left her a fortune.

The book is splendidly written and maintains the drama of Lady Sackville's life throughout.

Alsop. Lady Sackville: A Biography. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1978.