Trefusis, Violet

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Who is Violet Trefusis?

Portrait of Violet Trefusis (1926) by Jacques-Emile Blanche (see Wikimedia Commons)

According to Orlando, Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present, George Moore was introduced to Violet Keppel Trefusis (1894-1972) by her mother Alice Edmonstone Keppel (1868-1947), “one of the most prominent society hostesses of the Edwardian era.”

Violet and her mother Alice circa 1899 on a Royal Mail stamp issued in 1995 (see Wikimedia Commons)

Violet was a writer of fiction and nonfiction, but was famous as a lover of Vita Sackville-West and other women; she was also a model that writers such as Virginia Woolf and Nancy Mitford chose for their fictional characters.

Violet was born two years before Nancy Cunard and seems similarly endowed with a nonconforming personality. I have still to research Moore’s interest in her and whether he too used her as a model.

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