Challenge

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20th-century literature
A01=V. Sackville-West
A32=Mint Editions
adultery
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_V. Sackville-West
automatic-update
British poet
Category1=Fiction
Category=F
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
English verse
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
Eve
extramarital affair
Feminist themes
Greek islands
Greek War of Independence
historical fiction
Influential poet
Julian
Language_English
lesbian fiction
Literary heritage
Literary modernism
love affair
Nature and landscape
PA=Available
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
revolution
Romantic elements
softlaunch
Violet Trefusis

Product details

  • ISBN 9781513135496
  • Dimensions: 127 x 203mm
  • Publication Date: 31 Mar 2022
  • Publisher: West Margin Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
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Challenge (1923) is a novel by Vita Sackville-West. While she is most widely recognized as the lover of English novelist Virginia Woolf, Sackville-West was a popular and gifted poet, playwright, and novelist in her own right. A prominent lesbian and bohemian figure, Sackville-West was also the daughter of an English Baron, granting her a unique and often divided perspective on life in the twentieth century. “After spending nearly two years in exile, Julian was once more upon his way to Herakleion.” A man of fate, Julian Davenant was born into a wealthy English family on the island of Herakleion. Rather than continue the legacy of colonialism, Davenant—a Byronic hero—dreams of independence for the people of Greece, and eventually finds himself at the center of a revolutionary plot. As his political star rises, his love affair with the beautiful Eve catches fire, plunging Julian into a world of passion and danger. Known for her tumultuous, heated affairs with men and women alike, Sackville-West is an artist whose works so often mirror her life. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Vita Sackville-West’s Challenge is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

Vita Sackville-West (1892-1952) was an English novelist, poet, journalist, and gardener. Born at Knole, the Sackville’s hereditary home in west Kent, Vita was the daughter of English peer Lionel Sackville-West and his cousin Victoria, herself the illegitimate daughter of the 2nd Baron Sackville and a Spanish dancer named Pepita. Educated by governesses as a young girl, Vita later attended school in Mayfair, where she met her future lover Violet Keppel. An only child, she entertained herself by writing novels, plays, and poems in her youth, both in English and French. At the age of eighteen, she made her debut in English society and was courted by powerful and well-connected men. She had affairs with men and women throughout her life, leading an open marriage with diplomat Harold Nicholson. Following their wedding in 1913, the couple moved to Constantinople for one year before returning to settle in England, where they raised two sons. Vita’s most productive period of literary output, in which she published such works as The Land (1926) and All Passion Spent (1931), coincided with her affair with English novelist Virginia Woolf, which lasted from 1925 to 1935. The success of Vita’s writing—published through Woolf’s Hogarth Press—allowed her lover to publish some of her masterpieces, including The Waves (1931) and Orlando (1928), the latter being inspired by Sackville-West’s family history, androgynous features, and unique personality. Vita died at the age of seventy at Sissinghurst Castle, where she worked with her husband to design one of England’s most famous gardens.

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