Poet and novelist, born at Knole, Kent, SE England, UK. Educated privately, she started writing as a child. Her work expresses her closeness to the countryside where she lived, notably in the long poem, ‘The Land’ (1926). Her best-known novels are The Edwardians (1930) and All Passion Spent (1931). In 1913 she married diplomat and critic Harold Nicolson, a marriage which endured despite their homosexual affairs. Passenger to Teheran (1926) records their years in Persia. Her friendship with Virginia Woolf occasioned the latter's Orlando (1928). She wrote a weekly gardening column for The Observer for many years.