A House Full of Daughters A Memoir of Seven Generations by Juliet Nicolson (2016)

,

I was drawn to read A House Full of Daughters A Memoir of Seven Generations by Juliet Nicholson for two reasons.  One I have with three great daughters,,18, 20, and 23 my own "house full of daughters" and two I am interested in multigenerational histories of English aristocratic and literary families.  

I think the big attraction in this book is Vita Sackville-West.  She is the third generation, and is best now known as the inspiration for Virginia Woolf's Orlando. She is the grandmother of Juliet Nicolson. Vita had, as Nicolson tells us, over fifty lesbian relationships, including one with Virginia Woolf.

       Vita Sackville-West

The seven generations starts with a woman who became world famous as a dancer, known by the name of Pepita.  Before she married, without the approval of his family, a young Lord Lionel Sackville-West, her life was a bit of a scandal.  She moved to England, became a grand lady and gave birth to Victoria, mother of Vita.

     1830 to 1871, biography by her Granddaughter 

Vita is by far the most famous of the women.  She was, in her day, a very successful novelist, world famous gardener and mistress of a grand country house.  

Nicolson  in her very open memoir of her own life, sees common threads and difficulties in the lives of all the women, including her own daughters.  Most have at best slightly remote relationships with their own mother, most turned to alcohol as a retreat.  The author's account of her own serious drinking problem was very moving and brave.  

We are taken from southern Spain, to grand English country homes, to Washington, D. C. In the 1940s and 1950s to New York City the 1980s.

A Houseful of Daughters A Memoir of Seven Genetations is a very elegantly done family history.  It is also a social history and deals with family issues, especially between mothers and daughters.

I am glad I read this very interesting book.  There is a lot to be learned from this book.

       Juliet Nicolson with her daughters and granddaughter.  

Juliet Nicolson is the author of two works of history, The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age and The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm, and a novel, Abdication. As the granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson and the daughter of Nigel Nicolson, she is part of a renowned and much-scrutinized family, and the latest in the family line of record-keepers of the past. She lives with her husband in East Sussex, not far from Sissinghurst, where she spent her childhood. She has two daughters, Clemmie and Flora, and one granddaughter, Imogen.

Mel u

Vita Sackville-West- Two Shorter Works of Fiction

"The Tale of Mr. Peter Brown" (1922, 26 pages)

"Chelsea Justice"  (1925, 21 pages)


Vita Sackville-West (1892 to 1962-UK)  is best known to most people as the role model for the central character in Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando.   Born into great wealth in an aristocratic family,    Sackville-West is a bisexual icon.  Among her most famous romantic partners was Virginia Woolf but there were numerous other famous women and men in her life.   In her day she was also a very successful fiction writer, selling more books than Woolf.  My knowledge of Sackville-West comes largely from the very interesting biography of her by Victoria Glendinning.   (The basic facts of her life and a list of her publications can be found here.)


I have wanted to read her work for some time so I was very happy to find two of her short stories online.  (In 2012 all of her work will be out of copyright under the rules of Australia and Indian so I expect much of her work to be online soon.)


"The Tale of Mr. Peter Brown" is a work of pure delight.   It starts in a cafe and is told in the first person through a male narrator.   The narrator goes to the same cafe a lot.   One day he sees for the first time a man who seems very lonely and very stressed.   He wants to speak with him but at first he hesitates as striking up a conversation with a stranger is a violation of social convention.   The two men eventually become  acquaintances and the man in the cafe tells his story.   He needed a place to live so a friend invited him to move in with him and his wife.   He had his own room and was very happy there.  Things happen and his friend comes home to find him in bed with his wife.   The friend says "No problem, carry on" and he makes no mention of the incident.   But he is plotting one of the most terrible revenges imaginable short of killing someone.   The revenge is just so horrific (and I have to admit, clever!) that I will not spoil it for you.   The standard of writing is very high.   I am really surprised this is not a famous story.


"Chelsea Justice" is a good story but not nearly so as "The Tale of Mr. Peter Brown".  It is a well written and kind of exciting crime story but I do not really liked the way it was ended.   It seems kind of like an artistic short changing.   


You can down both of these stories HERE.


Mel u