The Edwardians (Vintage Classics) - Softcover

Sackville-West, Vita

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0525433996 ISBN 13: 9780525433996

Publisher: Vintage, 2017

Synopsis

An instant bestseller when it was published in 1930, this glittering satire of Edwardian high society features a privileged brother and sister torn between tradition and a chance at an independent life.

Sebastian is young, handsome, moody, and the heir to Chevron, a vast and opulent ducal estate. He feels a deep love for the countryside and for his patrimony, but he loathes the frivolous social world his mother and her shallow friends represent. At one of his mother’s decadent house parties, Sebastian meets two people who shake his sense of self: Leonard Anquetil, a lowborn arctic explorer, who questions his mode of living; and Lady Roehampton, a married society beauty with a string of lovers, who breaks his heart. When Sebastian reaches the brink of despair, it is his self-possessed younger sister, Viola, who opens for them both a gateway to another world.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Sebastian and Viola are children of the English aristocracy. Handsome and moody, nineteen–year–old Sebastian is heir to Chevron, a vast country estate. Tying him to his inheritance is a deep sense of tradition and love of the English countryside, but he loathes the cold, extravagant society of which he is a part. At sixteen, his sister Viola is more independent: an unfashionable beauty who scorns every part of her inheritance—most particularly that of womanhood. It is July 1905, and Chevron is once again the site of a lavish house party. The guests include the great beauty Lady Rochampton and the explorer Leonard Anquetil. It is Lady Rochampton who will initiate Sebastian in the art of love, but it is Anquetil who opens for both brother and sister the gateway to another world. Vita Sackville–West was a distinguished novelist, poet, and critic. She lived with her husband, Harold Nicolson, at Sissinghurst in Kent. The couple was the subject of the acclaimed BBC series Portrait of a Marriage.

About the Author:

VITA SACKVILLE-WEST (1892-1962) was a writer and poet born in England to aristocratic parents. In 1913, she married diplomat Harold Nicolson and traveled extensively before settling in 1930 at Sissinghurst Castle, where she designed a world-famous garden. Sackville-West had an affair with Virginia Woolf and was the model for the protagonist of Woolf’s Orlando. She is best known for her novels, including The Edwardians and All Passion Spent.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0525433996
• ISBN 13: 9780525433996
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272