All Passion Spent Author: [UK] Vita Sackville-West Publisher: Guangxi Normal University Press Original title: All Passion Spent

◎One sentence recommendation

A literary classic that transcends time and space, a life lesson for all women written by Woolf's soul mate, the legendary writer Vita, a novel version of A Room of One's Own. It is never too late for women to realize their self-awakening, self-liberation, and self-worth.

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◎Editor's Recommendation

1. It is never too late for women to realize their self-worth

The novel tells the story of a woman's self-awakening in her twilight years: in the past seventy years, this woman has obeyed her husband's orders, but now she decides to live the rest of her life according to her own preferences; this is not a boring old woman's story, but a story of an ageless woman. It turns out that status, wealth and family should not be a constraint for people to pursue their self-worth, especially for women.

2. “It makes the reader almost wish to live to be eighty-eight”

The novel mainly focuses on how Mrs. Slane settles down in her new home and lives the old age life she longs for. The tranquility she feels in "late summer, under the south wall, next to the peach tree" also sneaks into the reader's heart. Everything is quiet, with a little charm, freedom, independence, romance and abandonment of trivial matters. Sometimes, we also want to escape and feel tired of this huge world. In this story, we can finally get a rest.

3. A legendary author who inspired all female readers

Like the themes conveyed in her works, the author is also a role model for women's self-achievement. Vita began writing novels, plays and poems when she was a girl. As a poet, she won the Hawthornton Literary Award twice; as a novelist, her works were popular in her time and have been passed down to this day; as a gardener, she designed and built Sissinghurst Castle Garden, one of the most famous and most visited gardens in the UK, and continued to write a popular gardening column - in the UK where women did not get the right to vote until 1918, Vita's achievements are legendary.

4. Woolf’s literary muse

Vita was Virginia Woolf's close partner and source of inspiration. The decade between 1925 and 1935, when the two were in close contact, was the peak of their literary creation. During this period, Woolf created Orlando (1928), a work based on Vita, and Vita also created her masterpiece The Passion Is Out (1931), which echoed Woolf's A Room of One's Own written in 1929. Their love affair was also made into a movie Vita and Virginia (2018), which sparked heated discussions among movie fans.

5. Classic masterpiece, first translated into Chinese

As Vita's most representative work, "The Passion of the Lifeless" is still a classic in the minds of many readers (Goodreads rating 4.0, Amazon rating 4.4). In 1986, the BBC also adapted the story in the novel into a mini-series and put it on the screen. The Chinese version published this time is the first time that Vita's work has been translated into the Chinese world.

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◎Content Introduction

"A novel of unparalleled elegance, astonishment and still inspiring." - The Sunday Telegraph

During his lifetime, Lord Slane served as the Viceroy of India and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and was a big figure in British politics. After his death, the outside world thought that his 88-year-old widow would continue to be a well-behaved "vase" as in the past, and gradually wither away in sorrow. But Mrs. Slane, contrary to everyone's expectations, ignored her children's self-righteous arrangements, moved to a rented house in Hampstead, and lived an independent life. There, she regained the freedom she had longed for and made the acquaintance of several special companions. In her conversations with them, she recalled her ambitions when she was young, and slowly discovered how much she had sacrificed in the past years in order to live up to the so-called expectations of others...

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About the Author:

Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) was a British novelist, poet and horticulturist. She was born into an aristocratic family. In 1913, she married the diplomat Harold Nicolson and settled in Sissinghurst Castle in 1930, where she built a world-famous garden. She had a special friendship with Virginia Woolf and was the prototype of the protagonist in Woolf's novel Orlando. Vita published many works throughout her life, mainly novels and poems. Her representative works include All Passion Spent and The Edwardians. She has won the Hawthornden Prize twice.