The Land - Signed

First published in 1926, this a famous poetry collection of the changing of the seasons with secondary subjects such as Yeoman, Cider making, wildflowers etc annotated at edge of each subsequent page.

Vita was a renowned author, journalist and poet whilst equally famous for her many sexual partners and open marriage being unfairly seen as an androgynous icon in the early 1900’s. Born 1892 she died at her beloved Sissinghurst property in 1962 after years as a leader in the Bloomsbury literary group.

There are two copies of The Land in our collection (see the other copy here) that have excellent provenance from Forum Auctions in London by descent through the family of the author’s fondest lover Alvide Lees-Milne (1909- 1994), also a leading expert in gardening and landscape design.

Alvide was originally married to Anthony Chaplin, a hereditary peer and then to the author James Lees-Milne from 1951 till her death in 1994. James had been the lover of Harold Nicholson, (Vita’s husband till her death after over twenty years of very happy marriage) in the 1930’s. During Vita’s marriage, she and Alvide had an affair in the 1950’s whilst  they were both working on the Sissinghurst gardens and Alvide also moved in literary circles being good friends with many writers such as Nancy Mitford and Somerset Maugham. To add to the intrigue, James and Nancy’s brother Tom were lovers previously, whilst both attending that hotbed of promiscuity, Eton College. In this famous open marriage Sir Harold Nicholson would describe it as a union of “joyful companionship“ whilst he was an MP for Leicester through the war years (1935 -1945).
Sissinghurst is still kept in excellent order, both the castle and the gardens  being run by the British National Trust and visited by thousands every year.

In this less expensive later 1939 edition, the beautiful cryptic inscription from Vita reads “Alvide, but, not, alas, from Vita” dated in a different pen 3.7.53 in clear handwriting on the free front endpaper.