Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) [HISTORICAL] (Dedication p.3) was the woman who inspired Virginia Woolf's writing of Orlando. Sackville-West's poetry is included throughout the novel and the novel is dedicated to her. Sacksville-West's ancestry is quite intriguing. Her grandfather was a Baron and grandmother was an alluring ballerina who had Romany ancestry in her blood. Vita's mother was the daughter of this couple, and after being offered proposals from many men, she married her first cousin. Sackville-West wrote novels and full-length plays all throughout her childhood. She grew up on an incredibly welathy estate where many men attempted to recieve her hand in marriage. Sackville-West married a man named Harold whom she loved deeply, while also having affairs with close female friends such as Violet Trefusis. Sackville-West experimented with cross-dressing, personifying herself as a man called "Julian". Soon after her affair with Trefusis, she met Virginia Woolf, whom she had a deep attachment and romantic relationship with.

        Orlando depicts the love triangle between Sackville-West, Woolf, and Trefusis. Woolf reflects Sackville-West's Romany heritage by including gypsy culture throughout the text. Orlando turns to the gypsy community in order to better understand herself and her complicated sexuality. Orlando also grapples with he issues of class which are faced by Sackville-West. Because Sackville-West yields from such high society living, she is unable to embrace the freedom of a gypsy lifestyle with a female lover to the extent that she wishes she could. 

Blair, Kirstie. “Gypsies and Lesbian Desire: Vita Sackville-West, Violet Trefusis, and Virginia Woolf.” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 50, no. 2, 2004, pp. 141–166. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4149276. Accessed 30 May 2021.

Knight, Rebecca Dinerstein. “The Fabulous Forgotten Life of Vita Sackville-West.” The Paris Review, Strick&Williams, 31 Mar. 2020, www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/03/31/the-fabulous-forgotten-life-of-vi....