"Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf met at a dinner party given by Clive Bell in London on December 14, 1922. Their love affair grew out of an instant friendship. Virginia confided her impressions of Vita to her diary: "She is a pronounced Sapphist, & may... have an eye on me, old though I am. Nature might have sharpened her faculties. Snob as I am, I trace her passions 500 years back, & they become romantic to me, like old yellow wine. "" "Vita was quite taken with Virginia as well. She wrote to her husband Harold Nicholson: "I simply adore Virginia Woolf, and so would you. You would fall quite flat before her charm and personality... Mrs Woolf is so simple: she does give the impression of something big. She is utterly unaffected... At first you think she is plain, then a sort of spiritual beauty imposes itself on you, and you find a fascination in watching her... She is both detached and human, silent till she wants to say something, and then says it supremely well. She is quite old. I've rarely taken such a fancy to anyone, and I think she likes me. At least she's asked me to Richmond where she lives. Darling, I have quite lost my heart. "" "The Letters of Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf contains over 500 letters, both from Vita to Virginia and from Virginia to Vita in reply, a monument to a passionate relationship that lasted until Woolf's death in 1941. "--BOOK JACKET.