Portrait of a Marriage (1973)

Nigel Nicolson, Portrait of a Marriage, (Birkenhead: Willmer Brothers Limited, 1973) 

Portrait of a Marriage is a semi-autobiographical account of Vita Sackville-West’s marriage to Harold Nicolson. Vita’s diaries from 1920 to 1921 make up two of the four parts of this book, alternating with biographical accounts that the couple’s son, Nigel Nicolson, puts together with references to letters and other diaries. Nigel adds context to Vita’s writing, but he explicitly refrains from defending his mother.

Nigel Nicolson published the book in 1973, post Vita’s death, and its reception was highly controversial. Despite this, the book has remained a fascinating and deeply valued account of a unique marriage ever since, taking the reader through several years of Vita’s marriage to Harold, and her relationships with Violet Trefusis and Virginia Woolf.

The letters Vita and Violet – as well as Vita and Virginia – wrote to one another are poetic, to say the least, as befits their literary talent. Vita’s letters to her husband, British diplomat Sir Harold Nicolson, are no less beautiful, and it is evident that the couple were deeply in love.

Vita and Violet’s relationship didn’t survive Vita’s marriage (or Violet’s), and Vita later met Virginia Woolf. They fell in love, and this relationship becomes central to the continuing narrative of the book.

Harold had his own affairs, but the couple’s marriage not only survived them, but thrived. They wrote love letters to one another throughout their lives, and their son includes excerpts of these to evidence their enduring affection for one another despite a lack of sexual interest.

This is an honest account of an open marriage between two homosexuals that neither seeks to be scandalous, nor falls over itself justifying the morality of the situation. Instead, the various players are allowed to speak through their writing, providing a unique insight into the world that inspired Woolf’s Orlando.

More recently Nigel’s son, Adam Nicolson, has produced a documentary focusing on the Sissinghurst gardens, created by his grandmother Vita Sackville-West. His is the third generation telling the same story, and Dr Amber Regis looks at the appropriation of Vita’s account of her affair with Violet, and the ways in which multiple narratives told through many mediums highlight the need for intertextual analyses when looking at the authenticity of a narrative.

Portrait of a Marriage continues to be relevant for its observations on sexuality, open marriage, literature and the relationships between its characters, some of whom were involved or on the periphery of the Bloomsbury Group. The subsequent analysis of the text is equally fascinating.

Take for example the fact that Vita’s diaries have never been published in their entirety as a stand-alone book. Here is an instance in which her son claims he is opening up his parents’ lives to the public and leaving it for them to judge, but his mother’s life is undoubtedly altered by passing through his hands, both in what he chooses to include in this account, and what he chooses to exclude.

Nigel Nicolson’s defence in the face of the public backlash following the first publication of Portrait of a Marriage was that his parents’ relationship needed no justification, and it was up to the reader to form their own views on the matter.

There is also the broader link to English history – Vita and her husband were a titled family who lived in Sissinghurt Castle, which, now belonging to the National Trust, continues to enjoy a reputation connected to its famous historic inhabitants and the beauty of the gardens Vita spent years cultivating.

Looking for more sources?

There are two other biographies of Vita in the Hypatia collection: Vita by Victoria Glendinning, and Lady Sackville by Susan Mary Alsop. Vita’s letters to Virginia Woolf have been collected into a volume edited by Louis DeSalvo and Mitchell A. Leaska, titled The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, and N. MacKnight collected her letters to an actor and admirer in the book Dearest Andrew: Letters from V. Sackville West to Andrew Reiber.

The Hypatia collection has two other books written by Vita herself. Knole and the Sackvilles is an account of her family home, which she would have inherited if she had been born a boy. This book traces the property’s history from the Tudor period, as well as the history of the Sackville family. It was reprinted by the National Trust and more information can be found on their website.

Her other book, Passenger to Teheran, was written as Vita travelled to visit her husband in his posting in Teheran in 1926.

Written by Zara Ismail