Violet Trefusis [Paperback]

Philippe Jullian (Author), John Phillips (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 29, 1985

A remarkable woman in her own right and a highly gifted writer, Violet Trefusis is especially remembered for her scandalous affair with Vita Sackville-West, first disclosed in Portrait of a Marriage. After their abortive flight from their husbands in 1920, Vita returned to England and her writing, and Violet became an expatriate, immersing herself in international society and the world of art. This intriguing biography traces her life from a romantic childhood-when her mother, Alice Keppel, was the mistress of King Edward VII-to her death in Florence in 1972. A supplement of correspondence between Violet and Vita Sackville-West provides further insights into their relationship. The letters from Violet reveal, as nowhere else in her writing, the depth of her feelings for Vita. Those from Vita, written years later, attest that their love for one another never really ended.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Philippe Jullian (1921-1977) was a French illustrator, art historian, biographer, aesthete, novelist and dandy.

Born in Bordeaux in 1922, he studied Literature at university but left to pursue drawing and painting. In his later years, he resided in England but regularly spent winters in Africa. He also travelled extensively in India and Egypt. Jullian committed suicide in 1977.

A collector, he published his autobiography, La Brocante, which detailed the "love of small objects," in 1975.

One of his first officially noted works was the first "artist's" label for the famous wine from Château Mouton Rothschild in 1945, in memory for the World War II victory over Germany.

Jullian's book illustrations (for works by Honoré de Balzac, Colette, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ronald Firbank, Marcel Proust, and Oscar Wilde, among others, as well as for his own books) are witty, ornate, and often grotesque. His books and articles on Art Nouveau, Symbolism, and other art movements of the fin-de-siècle helped bring about a revival of interest in the period. These include the biography Robert de Montesquiou (1965; Prince of Aesthetes, 1967), Esthétes et Magiciens (1969; Dreamers of Decadence, 1971), Les Symbolistes (The Symbolists, 1973), and The Triumph of Art Nouveau (1974). Among others, he admired French painter Antonio de La Gandara. Works of fiction by Jullian, who was homosexual, also dealt with the decadent, sensual, and macabre with themes of homoeroticism, sado-masochism, transvestism and the aesthetic life. His gift for satire is evident both in his fiction (including La Fuite en Egypte [1968; The Flight into Egypt, 1970]) and in such works of social satire as Dictionnaire du Snobisme (The Snob-Spotter’s Guide, 1958), Les Collectioneurs (The Collectors, 1967), and most notably his collaboration with the British novelist Angus Wilson, For Whom the Cloche Tolls: A Scrap-Book of the Twenties (1953), which he also illustrated. Other books include Montmartre (1977) and Les Orientalistes (The Orientalists, 1977), works of art history; and biographies of Edward VII (1962), Wilde (1967), Gabriele D’Annunzio (1971), Jean Lorrain (1974), Violet Trefusis (1976), and Sarah Bernhardt.

John Phillips is a contributor for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt titles including: "Violet Trefusis".

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (March 29, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156935554
• ISBN-13: 978-0156935555
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,335,232 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars VIOLET TREFUSIS - A KEY REFERENCE, July 26, 2007

By 

Phillysound2 "a common reader" (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Violet Trefusis (Paperback)

This is the first biography of Violet (nee Keppel) Trefusis published in 1976 as "The Other Woman..." 4 years after Violet's death and 3 years after Nigel Nicolson's 'Portrait of a Marriage' was published (Violet's friends had been shocked by this book). It is written, with respect and affection by people who knew Violet in her late years (John Phillips was her executor) and had only recently learned in any detail of her early affair with Vita Sackville-West more than 50 years before.

At 143 pages it is a rapid read but, additionally, it includes a good selection of Violet's letters to Vita Sackville-West and later letters from Vita and Harold Nicolson to Violet. It includes quotes from Violet's 'Don't Look Round' and also from her unpublished memoire 'Triple Violette'.

We get a good sense of the old version of Violet as a larger than life, witty, flirtatious, fun loving woman who entertained luxuriously and knew all of high society. She appears to have built a psychological superstructure as the sensitive young Violet was not visible to the authors (she had not shared painful memories and she rose coloured the truth) therefore they find it difficult to construct an in-depth biography and rely heavily on the few contemporary published sources of information. More of their own very entertaining remembrances would have been welcome. "She played the Faubourg Saint-Germain dowager to perfection, but always with a wink to her intimates." She would say with that wink of hers, "You must remember I'm a very conventional old lady".

Nevertheless, this book includes the first sight of a collection of Violet's letters in full thus allowing Violet to speak for herself. The book was important for that reason. It is difficult to marry young Violet to her old enigmatic self. She therefore remains intriguing.

The name dropping gets a bit tiresome (because I don't recognize many of the aristocrats) but then that was her later life - full of aristocrats, writers, artists and the rest of high society. It is almost the antithesis of the bohemian desires of her youth.

This is a good read because of the insights of the authors who knew and appreciated Violet in her later years; the book remains important for this reason and because it contains the most comprehensive overview of the correspondence. The inclusion of 13 of Vita Sackville-West's letters from 1940 to 1950 (not gathered together anywhere else I believe) is particularly valuable because, from a cooling distance, the letters testify to the passion of the past and help make up for the destruction of Vita's early love letters. Here's the best quoted excerpt from Vita's letter of 3 September, 1950 when Vita and Violet were in their late 50s:

"This is a sort of love letter I suppose. Odd that I should be writing you a love letter after all these years - when we have written so many to each other. Parceque c'etait lui, parceque c'etait moi. [Because it was him, because it was me - Michel De Montaigne].

Oh, you sent me a book about Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Thank you, darling generous Lushka and you gave me a coal-black briquet. It lights up into the flame of love which always burns in my heart whenever I think of you. You said it would last for three months, but our love has lasted for forty years or more.

Your Mitya"

I originally awarded this book 3 stars because of its lack of depth but with hindsight it deserves 4 stars because of the intimate insights and the correspondence.