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Violet Trefusis

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Author

The Resume

    (June 6, 1894-February 29, 1972)
    Born in London, United Kingdom
    Birth name was Violet Keppel
    Daughter of Alice Keppel
    Wrote 'Sortie de Secours' (1929), 'Echo' (1931), 'Tandem' (1933), 'Broderie Anglaise' (1935), 'Hunt the Slipper' (1937), 'Les Causes Perdues' (1946), 'Pirates at Play' (1950) and 'Don't Look Round' (1952)
    Lover of author VIta Sackville-West and sewing machine heiress Winnaretta Singer

Why she might be annoying:

    She criticized her mother's extramarital affairs, then went on to have her own.
    She gave in to pressure from her mother to marry and wed Denys Trefusis after getting him to promise there would be no sex.
    She continued her affair with Sackville-West while on her honeymoon with Denys.
    She became estranged from her sister Sonia when the scandal from her affair with Sackville-West threatened to derail Sonia's marriage plans.
    Nancy Mitford said her memoirs should have been titled 'Here Lies Violet Trefusis.'
    She said, 'Across my life only one word will be written: 'waste.' Waste of love, waste of talent, waste of enterprise.'

Why she might not be annoying:

    Growing up, she and her sister Sonia would race slices of buttered toast down King Edward's trouser legs.
    She wrote half her novels in French and half in English.
    She received the Legion of Honor for making radio broadcasts for the Free French Forces during World War II.
    In her will, she left 5 million lire to the city of Florence for the benefit of the poor.
    She inspired characters in Virginia Woolf's 'Orlando,' Nancy Mitford's 'Love in a Cold Climate,' Cyril Connolly's 'The Rock Pool' and Harold Acton's 'The Soul's Gymnasium.'
    She wrote to Sackville-West, 'Give me great glaring vices, and great glaring virtues, but preserve me from the neat little neutral ambiguities.... Live fully, live passionately, live disastrously. Let's live, you and I, as none have ever lived before.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 6 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 15 Votes: 73.33% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 5 Votes: 40.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 17 Votes: 52.94% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 216 Votes: 66.20% Annoying