Vita Sackville-West's brilliant first novel, published in 1919, at the height of her stormy affair with Violet Trefusis, is acclaimed as a masterpiece. The story of Ruth Pennistan, on the one hand a conventional farmer's daughter, born and brought up in Kent, on the other a mysterious gypsy figure, trapped against her will in a drama of love and tragedy. A heroine who mirrored the passions and contradictions of Vita's own life and character. 'Alive with smouldering passion and passages of real beauty ...unquestionably a novel of unusual power' Daily Telegraph