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She published her debut collection of poems, ''Floral Symphony'', in 1900. In 1910 she edited ''A Book of Verse by Living Women''. In her introduction, she noted that poetry was an art in which women were allowed to engage without opposition, and made a direct connection between women's social freedom and the freedom of the imagination.<ref name=Orlando>[http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=sackma Lady Margaret Sackville], Orlando Project.</ref>
  
She published her debut collection of poems, ''Floral Symphony'', in 1900. In 1910 she edited ''A Book of Verse by Living Women''. In her introduction, she noted that poetry was an art in which women were allowed to engage without opposition, and made a direct connection between women's social freedom and the freedom of the imagination.<ref name=Orlando>[http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=sackma Lady Margaret Sackville], Orlando Project.</ref>
   
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When the [[Poetry Society]] was formed in 1912, she was made its founding president.<ref>Jane Dowson and Alice Entwistle (2005). ''[http://bilder.buecher.de/zusatz/14/14689/14689324_vorw_1.pdf A History of Twentieth-Century Women's Poetry]''. Cambridge University Press, p. xv. ISBN 0-521-81946-6. She had also been the inaugural president of its predecessor, the Poetry Recital Society, formed in 1909. Joy Grant, in her biography of [[Harold Monro]], writes that Sackville "spoke well and to the point at the inauguration, hoping that the Society would 'never become facile and "popular", to turn to a merely trivial gathering of persons amiably interested in the same ideal'.<ref>''Poetical Gazette'', No. 23, p. 454 [in ''Poetry Review'', I (Sept. 1912)].</ref> Her half-expressed fears were unfortunately fulfilled: the direction in which the Society was heading soon became obvious — poetry was made an excuse for pleasant social exchanges, for irrelevant snobbery, for the disagreeable consequences of organised association."<ref>Joy Grant (1967). ''Harold Monro and the Poetry Bookshop''. University of California Press, p. 36. ISBN 0-520-00512-0.</ref>
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When the [[Poetry Society]] was formed in 1912, she was made its founding president.<ref>Jane Dowson and Alice Entwistle (2005). ''[http://bilder.buecher.de/zusatz/14/14689/14689324_vorw_1.pdf A History of Twentieth-Century Women's Poetry]''. Cambridge University Press, p. xv. ISBN 0-521-81946-6.<ref> She had also been the inaugural president of its predecessor, the Poetry Recital Society, formed in 1909. Joy Grant, in her biography of [[Harold Monro]], writes that Sackville "spoke well and to the point at the inauguration, hoping that the Society would 'never become facile and "popular", to turn to a merely trivial gathering of persons amiably interested in the same ideal'.<ref>''Poetical Gazette'', No. 23, 454 [in ''Poetry Review'', I (Sept. 1912)].</ref> Her half-expressed fears were unfortunately fulfilled: the direction in which the Society was heading soon became obvious — poetry was made an excuse for pleasant social exchanges, for irrelevant snobbery, for the disagreeable consequences of organised association."<ref>Joy Grant (1967). ''Harold Monro and the Poetry Bookshop''. University of California Press, 36. ISBN 0-520-00512-0.</ref>
   
 
===Romance===
  
===Romance===

Revision as of 00:38, 26 February 2021

Margaret Sackville

Lady Margaret Sackville (1881-1963). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Lady Margaret Sackville FRSL (24 December 1881 - 18 April 1963) was an English poet and children’s author.[1]

Life

Sackville was born at 60 Grosvenor Street, Mayfair, London, the youngest child of Reginald Windsor Sackville, 7th earl De La Warr (who died when she was 14). She was a second cousin of Vita Sackville-West.[2]

She began to write poetry at an early age, and at 16 became a protegée of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. With his encouragement, she had her early poems published in periodicals such as The English Review, the Englishwoman's Review, Country Life, The Nation, The Spectator and the Pall Mall Gazette.[3]

She published her debut collection of poems, Floral Symphony, in 1900. In 1910 she edited A Book of Verse by Living Women. In her introduction, she noted that poetry was an art in which women were allowed to engage without opposition, and made a direct connection between women's social freedom and the freedom of the imagination.[3]

When the Poetry Society was formed in 1912, she was made its founding president.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag Her half-expressed fears were unfortunately fulfilled: the direction in which the Society was heading soon became obvious — poetry was made an excuse for pleasant social exchanges, for irrelevant snobbery, for the disagreeable consequences of organised association."[4]

Romance

Sackville had a passionate 15-year love affair with Ramsay MacDonald, recorded in letters they wrote to each other between 1913 and 1929. MacDonald repeatedly proposed to her, but she declined to be his wife. His biographer David Marquand speculated that, although social considerations were a factor in her refusal, the main reason was that they were of different religions. Lady Margaret was Roman Catholic, while MacDonald was raised in the Presbyterian Church, later joining the Free Church of Scotland.[5][6] Lady Margaret never married.

Peace movement

At the outbreak of World War I, she joined the anti-war Union of Democratic Control. In 1916 she published a collection of poems called The Pageant of War. It included the poem "Nostra Culpa", denouncing women who betrayed their sons by not speaking out against the war. Her sister-in-law, Muriel De La Warr, and her nephew, Herbrand Sackville, 9th Earl De La Warr, were also involved in the peace movement. Her brother, Gilbert Sackville, 8th Earl De La Warr,[7] was killed during the conflict in 1915.

Later life

She spent much of her adult life in Midlothian and Edinburgh. [8] She was a member of Marc-André Raffalovich's Whitehouse Terrace salon, where she would meet guests like Henry James, Compton Mackenzie, and artist Hubert Wellington.[9]

In 1922 she published "A Masque of Edinburgh." This was performed at the Music Hall on George Street, Edinburgh, and depicted the history of Edinburgh in 11 scenes from the Romans to a meeting between Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott.[10] She lived at 30 Regent Terrace, Edinburgh, from 1930 to 1932.[10]

In 1936 Lady Margaret moved to Cheltenham, where she lived for the rest of her life. She died of a heart condition at Rokeby Nursing Home in Cheltenham.

Writing

The spare and angry strength of Lady Margaret's war poems has attracted recent critical attention.[3] Brian Murdoch notes the absence of overt patriotic elements in The Pageant of War and its memorialisation of all the dead: soldiers, non-combatants and refugees.[11]

Recognition

She became the founding president of Scottish PEN, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Publications

Poetry

  • Floral Symphony. Bradford, UK: 1901.
  • Poems. London: John Lane, 1901.
  • A Hymn to Dionysus, and other poems. London: Elkin Mathews, 1905.
  • Bertrud, and other dramatic poems. Edinburgh: W. Brown, 1911.
  • Lyrics. London: Herbert & Daniel, 1912.
  • Songs of Aphrodite, and other poems. London: Elkin Mathews, 1913.
  • The Pageant of War. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1916.
  • Selected Poems. London: Constable, 1919.
  • Poems. London: Allen & Unwin, 1923.
  • A Rhymed Sequence. Edinburgh: Porpoise Press, 1924.
  • Epitaphs. Leeds, UK: Swan Press, 1926.
  • Romantic Ballads. Edinburgh: Porpoise Press, 1927.
  • 100 Little Poems. Edinburgh: Porpoise Press, 1928.
  • Twelve Little Poems. London: E. Lahr for the Red Lion Press, 1931.
  • Ariadne by the Sea. London: Red Lion Press, 1932.
  • The Double House, and other poems. London: Williams & Norgate, 1935.
  • Collected Poems. London: Martin Secker, 1939.
  • Return to Song, and other poems. London: Williams & Norgate, 1943.
  • Paintings and Poems. . Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, UK: F. Lewis, 1944.
  • Country Scenes and Country Verse. Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, UK: F. Lewis, 1945.
  • The Lyrical Woodlands (illustrated by Lonsdale Ragg) . Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, UK: F. Lewis, 1945.
  • Miniatures. Braford, UK: Beamsley Press, 1947.
  • Tree Music. London: Williams & Norgate, 1947.
  • Miniatures: Second series. Crayke, Yorkshire, UK: Guild Press, 1956.
  • Quatrains, and other poems. Llandello, Wales, UK: St. Albert's Press, 1960.

Plays

  • Hildris the Queen: A play in four acts. Manchester, UK: Sherratt & Hughes, 1908.
  • Three Plays for Pacifists. London: The Herald, 1919.
  • Three Fairy Plays. London: Williams & Norgate, 1925.
  • Collected Dramas. London: Allen & Unwin, 1926.
  • Alicia and the Twilight: A fantasy. London: W. Gardner / Darton, 1928.

Juvenile

  • The Travelling Companions. London: 1906.
  • Fairy Tales for Old and Young (with Ronald Campbell Macfie; illustrated by B.L. Tennant). London: Sherratt & Hughes, 1909.
  • More Fairy Tales for Old and Young (with Ronald Campbell Macfie; illustrated by Broady Watson). London: Sherratt & Hughes, 1912.
  • The Career Briefly Set Forth of Mr. Percy Prendergast, Who Told the Truth (illustrated by Cecil Ingram). London: Arthur H. Stockwell, 1914.
  • The Dream Pedlar (illustrated by Florence Anderson). London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1914.
  • The Travelling Companions, and other stories for children. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1915.
  • Mr. Horse's New Shoes. London: Country Life, 1936.
  • Tom Noodle's Kingdom. London & Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers, 1941.

Edited

  • A Book of Verse for Living Women. London: Herbert & Daniel, 1910.
  • Jane Austen (selections from the novels). London: Herbert & Daniel, 1912.


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[12]

See also

References

  • Somerville, Georgina (ed.) (1953). Harp Aeolian: Commentaries on the Works of Lady Margaret Sackville. Cheltenham: Burrows Press.

Notes

  1. ↑ Margaret Sackville, Spartacus Educational. Web, July 26, 2015.
  2. ↑ "Sackville-West family tree". National Portrait Gallery. http://images.npg.org.uk/groupsMedia/familyTrees/Sackville-West_family.pdf. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Lady Margaret Sackville, Orlando Project.
  4. ↑ Joy Grant (1967). Harold Monro and the Poetry Bookshop. University of California Press, 36. ISBN 0-520-00512-0.
  5. ↑ Ben Fenton (2 November 2006). "Secret love affair of Labour Prime Minister and Lady Margaret is revealed 80 years on", The Daily Telegraph.
  6. ↑ Patrick Barkham (3 November 2006). "My Dear Provocation", The Guardian.
  7. ↑ Gilbert Sackville – Family Tree. Several online sources mistakenly state that Muriel De La Warr and Herbrand Sackville were Lady Margaret's aunt and uncle.
  8. ↑ Portrait of Lady Margaret Sackville by Henry Lintott: Caption, National Galleries of Scotland.
  9. ↑ Papers of and relating to Marc André Raffalovich, Archive Hub.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Anne Mitchell (1993). The People of Calton Hill. Mercat Press, James Thin, Edinburgh. ISBN 1-873644-18-3.
  11. ↑ Brian Murdoch (2009). "For Empire, England's Boys, and The Pageant of War: Women's War Poetry in the Year of the Somme", English 58:220 (Spring 2009), 29-53.
  12. ↑ Search results = au:Margaret Sackville, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, July 26, 2015.

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