While five stars may seem somewhat generous for this book, it remains one of the few I've read more than once. I found it in my local library after the PBS aired, to much accompanying controversy, the BBC production of Nigel Nicholson's "Portrait of a Marriage" back in 1992. One of the unfortunate things done by the good people at the PBS was to cut 30 minutes from the dramatization. And this is why, ladies and gentlemen, we turn to books--to get the rest of the story.

Although Diane Souhami's "Mrs Keppel and Her Daughter" gives a more comprehensive picture of Violet Keppel Trefusis' life, Jullian's narrative is charming and picturesque. Trefusis for her part could write the most beautiful love letters imaginable. Is it no wonder hers remain while those of Vita Sackville-West were destroyed (not by Violet herself, but she was so careless about them one wonders if they really mattered after all)?

Violet Trefusis and Vita Sackville-West were ! women of privilege but dominated by mothers who would have died before allowing their daughters a college education. I can only imagine what they as writers would have produced had they had the opportunity to a more formal education. Well, that didn't prevent Virginia Woolf from earning an important place in literature, but I am a big believer in affirmative action. Vita and Violet were robbed!

"The Other Woman" is about a woman who loved the arts and wore her heart on her sleeve--a rare bird these days. Five stars may be generous but three of the five belong entirely to Violet--a woman who knew how to make life lovely.