Violet Trefusis

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Standard Name: Trefusis, Violet
Birth Name: Violet Keppel
Married Name: Violet Trefusis
Though VT is best known to literary history as a lover of English writer and aristocrat Vita Sackville-West , she wrote and published in a range of genres throughout her life, which spanned much of the twentieth century. These include diaries and letters, novels, memoirs, travel journalism, and radio broadcasting, composed in both English and French.
Head-and-shoulders portrait sketch of Violet Trefusis by William Bruce Ellis Ranken, 1919. Against a purple background, she looks straight at the viewer, wearing light purple dress and bright red lipstick. Her hair is chin-length, curly, and brown.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Rebecca West
RW again met Violet Trefusis in Florence (whom she had known slightly in England), and they became lifelong friends.
Rollyson, Carl. Rebecca West: A Saga of the Century. Hodder and Stoughton.
56-7
Trefusis, Violet, and Philippe Jullian. Don’t Look Round. Hutchinson.
71-2
Education Iris Tree
Sometime after 1904, IT and her next elder sister, Felicity, began attending Miss Wolff 's day school, an unconventional school held at the private home of Miss Wolff at South Audley Street, London. There...
Friends, Associates Edith Sitwell
ES had many friendships, and there were few notables in the artistic world whom she did not meet. Her friendships were quite volatile, with frequent quarrels, sometimes caused by the practical jokes and the heightened...
Family and Intimate relationships Vita Sackville-West
VSW and Violet Keppel (later Violet Trefusis ) spent the winter together in France (at Paris and Avignon) and at Monte Carlo.
Glendinning, Victoria. Vita. Penguin.
98-9
Nicolson, Nigel, and Vita Sackville-West. Portrait of a Marriage. Futura.
143
Family and Intimate relationships Vita Sackville-West
VSW and the now married Violet Trefusiseloped to France, where they had previously enjoyed the freedom to enact the roles which went with their love-affair.
Glendinning, Victoria. Vita. Penguin.
108
Nicolson, Nigel, and Vita Sackville-West. Portrait of a Marriage. Futura.
143
Publishing Vita Sackville-West
VSW 's Challenge, a novel based on her love-affair with Violet Trefusis , appeared in New York from George H. Doran ; it remained unpublished in Britain until 1974.
Nicolson, Nigel, and Vita Sackville-West. “Foreword”. Challenge, Collins, pp. 7-11.
7
Education Vita Sackville-West
At thirteen VSW began attending a small day school run by Helen Wolff (whose name is variously spelled in various sources) in South Audley Street, off Park Lane. The staff were mostly male. Vita...
Family and Intimate relationships Vita Sackville-West
During her relationship with Vita, Rosamund was fiercely jealous of Violet Keppel , later Trefusis. Vita had rejoiced, when she met Violet at a party in London, at having a real friend.
Glendinning, Victoria. Vita. Penguin.
23
Violet...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Vita Sackville-West
As the title implies, the poems spring from two settings: those of Kent and of the Mediterranean. Many encode personal meanings about human relationships; many deal with country life and environments. Bitterness, written...
Material Conditions of Writing Vita Sackville-West
VSW began this work while alone in the country with her children, but still deeply affected by the turbulent after-life of her affair with Violet Trefusis . She finished it on 28 March 1921. Nigel Nicolson
Material Conditions of Writing Vita Sackville-West
VSW began working on Reddin in 1921, on a boat off Italy. Having rebuilt her marriage after her affair with Violet Trefusis , she wanted to voice her philosophy of life. At this date...
Textual Production Vita Sackville-West
In 1923 VSW was reviewing regularly for the Nation and Athenæum; she also contributed to The Observer, the London Mercury, and the New Statesman.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
3: 57
She wrote the entry on...
Textual Production Vita Sackville-West
VSW began on Challenge in May 1918, early in her affair with Violet, and wrote most of it in Monte Carlo when the two were there together, reading it to Violet in the evenings for...
Dedications Vita Sackville-West
She dedicated it to Violet Trefusis , using the initial L., short for the nickname Lushka.
Family and Intimate relationships Vita Sackville-West
VSW began her sexual affair with Violet Keppel (later Violet Trefusis), who had been an erotic force in her life since her schooldays.
Glendinning, Victoria. Vita. Penguin.
23, 91
Nicolson, Nigel, and Vita Sackville-West. Portrait of a Marriage. Futura.
143

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Trefusis, Violet, and Victoria Glendinning. Broderie Anglaise. Translator Bray, Barbara, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.
Trefusis, Violet, and Philippe Jullian. Don’t Look Round. Hutchinson, 1952.
Trefusis, Violet, and Philippe Jullian. Don’t Look Round. Hutchinson, 1953.
Trefusis, Violet. Écho. Plon, 1931.
Trefusis, Violet, and Philippe Jullian. From Dusk to Dawn. Tom Stacey, 1972.
Trefusis, Violet. Hunt the Slipper. W. Heinemann, 1937.
Trefusis, Violet, and Lorna Sage. Hunt the Slipper. Virago, 1983.
Sage, Lorna, and Violet Trefusis. “Introduction”. Hunt the Slipper, Virago, 1983, p. v - xiv.
Glendinning, Victoria, and Violet Trefusis. “Introduction”. Broderie Anglaise, translated by. Barbara Bray and Barbara Bray, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.
Trefusis, Violet. “Introduction”. Violet to Vita, edited by Mitchell A. Leaska, Methuen, 1989, pp. 1-52.
St Aubin de Terán, Lisa, and Violet Trefusis. “Introduction”. Pirates at Play, Virago, 1996, p. vii - xiii.
Trefusis, Violet. Les Causes Perdues. Gallimard, 1941.
Jullian, Philippe, and Philippe Jullian. Memoirs of an Armchair. Translator Trefusis, Violet, Hutchinson, 1960.
Trefusis, Violet. Pirates at Play. Joseph, 1950.
Trefusis, Violet, and Lisa St Aubin de Terán. Pirates at Play. Virago, 1996.
Trefusis, Violet. Prelude to Misadventure. Hutchinson, 1941.
Trefusis, Violet. Sortie de secours. Éditions Argo, 1929.
Trefusis, Violet. Tandem. W. Heinemann, 1933.
Jullian, Philippe et al. The Other Woman. Houghton Mifflin, 1976.
Trefusis, Violet. Violet to Vita. Editors Leaska, Mitchell A. and John Nova Phillips, Methuen, 1989.
Jullian, Philippe et al. Violet Trefusis: Life and Letters. Hamish Hamilton, 1976.