I am merely a reader, a consumer of books for amusement and personal instruction, not a professional reviewer - and that is indeed a worthy profession, an important literary craft - so these posts are merely meant to be one person's reading responses, not scholarly reviews. There is a field of people who think you should always look at an author’s background when analyzing the text, and another group who say you should read nothing about them. She was the one who caved in to pressure to bring them up in a way the world would approve, but then decides she doesn't gel with the hoop-jumping people they grew into.

Sharing much with Sackville-West, Lady Slane explicitly states that she is not a feminist, and gives voice to many of Sackville-West's personal opinions. But one was happy at one moment, unhappy two minutes later, and neither for any good reason; so what did it mean? Often classified as an example of feminist literature – the Virginia Woolf parallels and comparisons are de rigueur – this novel transcends that earnest label and is also a very fine piece of story-telling, full of keen observation and humour. Sharing much with Sackville-West, Lady Slane explicitly states that she is not a feminist and considers such issues to be questions of human rights, while acknowledging the more difficult position of women. Told through the eyes of an octogenarian recently emancipated by widowhood as she delves into her bittersweet memories.

In 1986 All Passion Spent was adapted into a 3 episode BBC television series starring Wendy Hiller as Lady Slane. With her husband Sir Harold Nicolson she created the celebrated garden at Sissinghurst Castle, near Cranbrook, Kent, now owned by the National Trust. The understanding and sympathy Lady Slane is suddenly about to show her great-granddaughter Deborah, who is confronted with the same problem she faced in her own girlhood.

Lady Slane doesn’t get her room until late in life but she takes full advantage of the freedom it offers to her life on her own terms.

I think that quite often elderly people resent the way their grown up children treat them and would like to behave like Lady Slane if they could afford it. Henry Lyulph Holland, first Earl of Slane, had existed for so long that the public had begun to regard him as immortal. In this new phase of her life Lady Slane reflects on frustrated artistic passions, on being young and growing old and on the nature of happiness. Even in my limited corner of the blogosphere people are saying in almost the same breath: I never read SF/I loved Handmaiden. You can see my naivete in this post but I still use it now as a reference, maybe you will find it helpful too: https://anzlitlovers.

With her French maid, only a few years younger than herself, she betakes them to a house in Hampstead, kept in remembrance by her for thirty years. But Lady Slane’s life is not destined to be one of solitude, for she soon attracts a small group of friends, of “followers”. I’d read lots of it, at university, but I didn’t really have a language to talk about it though I must have written essays about it or I wouldn’t have passed with high distinctions.A century after Constable, Lady Slane is attracted to Hampstead because of its distance from the center of power: “Hampstead seemed scarcely a part of London, so sleepy and village-like, with its warm red-brick houses and vistas of trees and distance that reminded her pleasantly of Constable’s paintings. When Lady Slane refuses to be “cared for” and instead makes her own arrangements for her future without familial consultation, her offspring are at first shocked, and then, in most cases, highly resentful. It was the first book by this author that I have read and I expected it to be more dated than it was.

An acquaintance from Lady Slane's distant past as Vicereine of India, millionaire by inheritance, lover of beauty and fine art.Its major theme is that of gaining control over one’s own life, and it also addresses the constrictions of class and gender. This is a thought-provoking story for anyone who wants to give themselves permission to live a simple, humble, contemplative life.