Vita Sackville-West reads from her poem The Land 

OMG! I can't believe I'm actually hearing her voice, I feel blessed! Now I just need to hear Violet Trefusis's voice ♥

She walks among the loveliness she made, Between the apple-blossom and the water - She walks among the patterned pied brocade, Each flower her son, and every tree her daughter.

Thank you for posting this, I always wondered what her voice was like. I do like her writing, she taught herself Italian and spoke French too. Being a woman she couldn't inherit he beloved Knole; perhaps if she was another class she would have been a Suffragette, but then she wouldn't have been forgiven her relationships with women as easily. I think her unusually beautiful.

I'm fangirling a bit about this, I can't believe that's how Vita sounds like. Legend!

How wonderful to hear the great Vita's voice! Hers is certainly an upper class, aristocratic accent...but one which is not heard any longer precisely. There's a recording of Virginia Woolf, her friend, reading and her accent is similar. Accents - of whatever class - evolve over the generations. This a real treasure. Thankyou for posting.

I find it difficult to believe that people talk of the mediocrity of her verse. She was an accomplished poet, although epic and therefore probably too long winded to be popular. Her garden and gardening journalism are high points to which all should aspire. And, lest we forget, she left one of the greatest memoires of all time. Fascinating to hear that kind of voice again, clipped in places we'd now expand, and those wonderful long O's. Like hearing great granny again.

What a voice - so clear and commanding. This, with her sense of adventure, and of course, her legs, no wonder so many people fell in love with her

I have just finished reading A Portrait of A Marriage, the most passionate, extraordinary book ever and so it is such a joy to hear her voice, and what a rare recording! Thank you so much for postying this.

Thanks SO much for posting this. It is amazing to hear her voice for the first time. What an accent.

What some hear as a dreary catalog of plant life is an evocative, subtly composed recitation of garden vignettes which gardeners of a certain type will deeply appreciate. Take up gardening for a few decades and then come back and listen again: there's more here than a list of plants. Sackville-West was famous for her garden? Her Sissinghurst (developed in partnership with her husband Harold) is widely regarded as one of the greatest horticultural achievements of the twentieth century.

Visited Knole today trough the love of Orlando and suddenly everything made sense, located at Seven Oaks and all the oak trees that surround it! Had never heard her voice, what a treasure

It is lovely to hear to her read her own poetry in her distinctive way. Thank you for sharing.

Fantastic! What a treasure. Such a queenly voice. Twas to be expicted. O! The Liand, the Liand, the Liand! Thank you. Seriously, this is very rare and much, much appreciated.

Oh how I love to listen to this geared it so many times what a beautiful hypnotic voice she had just like her has a person .I have never known anyone like her love her to bits thanks for sharing this

She was no ordinary person.

This is a miracle!!! It's like have her here again! Amazing poem

I am greatly indebted to this amazing gesture. Words fail. With undying gratitude....

Kiitos, Vita, rohkeudesta, se rohkaisee meitä sinua seuraavia sukupolvia. T. Rakkain terveisin ystävä Suomesta.

this is just amazing. thank you for posting this

love your gentle teasing sense of humour. vita, i think, for all her seeming more english than the english, ran temperamentally truer to her spanish blood. i wish her letters to violet had been saved...

I am so thankful for this upload. I never thought I'd actually find a recording of her voice on youtube, but I know she worked at the BBC and wondered if anything might be available. Well, her voice is not how I imagined it. This sounds like a a very pretty and plump, little English granny. Adorable! My nephew asked me today, if I could have any superpower what would I have? And because I'm obsessing over Vita, again, I said I'd be a time-traveller! This video has also piqued my interest in her poetry, so once again, much gratitude for this!

Thank you

Thank you so much for this!

wow! thanks SO much for posting this

wow I am reading the Land at the moment and find this fantastic

@zoey8072 she was very fluent in french ( her mother ( also named victoria sackville -west was raised in france ) ...I'm currently reading Vita by Victoria Glendinning & there is no reference to her ever learning spanish

nice poetry, happy Birthday

Wow this is amazing thanks for sharing!

Having read the book I read these comments and dont feel I want to spoil what for me was a special book

Yes, it sounds completely different. I don't think that anyone speaks exactly like this nowadays. The closest would be the novelist Diana Athill. I think that she's in her 90s now.

Oops! Sorry for spreading confusion. Both excerpts read here are from The Land, the second one from the section titled "Spring". The Land has a 1927 copyright. The companion poem The Garden (copyright 1946) also has a section titled "Spring": I had the two "Spring" sections confused.

You can (with an adapter - from RadioShack) connect from the speaker output of your computer to the aux. input of a stereo receiver. Then from the stereo line out (or tape out) into whatever. There may be a more sophisticated way but others will have to tell you.

Well she was a member of one of the grandest aristocratic families in England's history - with centuries of Dukes, Earls, Lord Treasurers, Lord Chamberlains and Lord Lieutenants. So it's only to be expected that her way of speaking would sound extremely upper-class, given that was exactly the milieu in which she was raised. I don't see how snobbishness comes into it - she wasn't putting it on. And how is this accent any more ridiculous than a cockney accent, for example?

I can die happy, I made the London Times!

Wonderful Recording! By the way...do you have many of this kind of 'Audio Book' recordings on 78s?

Oh - to only see her too

Yes, I have a few.

saw a reference to this clip in the Times Literary Supplement, july 08, no. 5494. beats reactions to two girls one cup any day.

THANK YOU!

Well let's see. About 20,000 records and maybe 35,000 sides each lasting about 4 min. With setup time, adjusting, etc, I might be able to do one side in 10 minutes. 35,000 sides x 10 min. =350,000 min. = about 58,000 hours. The average work year is 2000 hrs. So it would take me 29 years!!! 78's are VERY durable - more so than LP's and CD's.

Are there copies of Vita’s recordings for the BBC? Podcast-like?

can i ask where you got the vinyl from?

The Introduction written by Nigel Nicolson (son of Sackville-West) to a 1989 republication of these poems by publishers Webb & Bower makes the claim that The Garden was composed during the period 1939-1945. If this recording really was made in 1931, it proves otherwise.

well said.

So Byronesque

She sounds just like Harriet Walter.

I thought it was sexy but yeah she was in to Virginia...

Adore Vita's work, but I've never understood the appeal of spoken poetry, it just doesn't work.

Thank you