"In the famous image of Vita Sackville-West, Lady with a Red Hat, the writer is the embodiment of the confident young aristocrat. Exuding a languid elegance, her heavy-lidded Sackville eyes gaze out from beneath the broad brim. But this portrait captures another element of Vita’s persona. It was painted in 1918, shortly after her sexual awakening with Violet Keppel, and beneath the flamboyant clothes and bright lipstick there is an androgynous quality. In Behind the Mask, the first biography of Vita for 30 years, Matthew Dennison focuses on this ambiguity, exploring the duality which was rooted in her genetic inheritance and her eccentric upbringing." - Maitani

"Vita’s identity embraced masculine and feminine elements; her stiff-upper-lip English ancestry was in conflict with the Latin blood from her grandmother Pepita, a Spanish dancer who was the mistress of Lionel, Baron Sackville. Among their illegitimate offspring was Vita’s mother Victoria, who by marrying her cousin became the mistress of the Sackvilles’ ancestral home, Knole in Kent." - Maitani