British authors David Garnett & Vita Sackville-West were born - 1892

On March 9, 1892, British author and publisher David Garnett was born in Brighton, England. He was a prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group, and received literary recognition when his novel Lady into Fox (1922) was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. He ran a bookshop near the British Museum with Francis Birrell during the 1920s. He also founded the Nonesuch Press. He wrote the novel Aspects of Love (1955), on which the later Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical was based. His first wife was illustrator Rachel "Ray" Marshall, sister of translator and diarist Frances Partridge. Garnett and Marshall, whose woodcuts appear in some of his books. Garnett was bisexual, and he had affairs with Francis Birrell and Duncan Grant. He was present at the birth of Grant's daughter, Angelica on December 25, 1918, and wrote to a friend shortly afterwards, "I think of marrying it. When she is 20, I shall be 46 – will it be scandalous?” When Angelica was in her early twenties, they did marry (on May 8, 942), to the horror of her parents. They would have four daughters, but the marriage was doomed. After his separation from Angelica, Garnett moved to France and lived in a pleasant house on the grounds at the Chateau de Charry. He continued to write, made friends among the local English community of the locality, and lived there until his death on February 17, 1981.

 

On March 9, 1892, author and poet Vita Sackville-West was born in Kent, England. She was known for her exuberant aristocratic life, and passionate love affair with novelist Virginia Woolf. Her most important works include The Edwardians (1930), All Passion Spent (1931), and Grand Canyon (1942). Her long narrative poem, The Land, won the Hawthornden Prize in 1927. She won it again, becoming the only writer to do so, in 1933 with her Collected Poems. Vita died on June 2, 1962 at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, England.

Michael Thomas Barry is the author of Great Britain’s Literary Legends. The book can be purchased from Amazon through the following links:

Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/Great-Britains-Literary-Legends-Writers/dp/0764344382/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1362850248&sr=8-3&keywords=michael+thomas+barry

Amazon UK - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Britains-Literary-Legends-Writers/dp/0764344382/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1362850287&sr=8-7