First edition, first impression, presentation copy inscribed to the author's sometime lover Hilda "Stoker" Matheson (1888-1940). This copy is inscribed "H. with love from V. Oct 30th 1937" on the front free endpaper. Matheson, whom Vita nicknamed "Stoker", was Director of Talks at the BBC from 1927-1931, and had an affair with Vita Sackville-West (whom she had got in to deliver a radio broadcast on "The Modern Woman") during this period. The coupled travelled in Savoy together in 1929, and Vita dedicated her poem from that venture "Storm in the Mountains" (1929) to Hilda. Compellingly, this copy has a typewritten copy of Sackville-West's earlier poem "On the Lake" (1925) laid in. This much later inscription, done on the day of publication, evinces the long continuance of their friendship. When Hilda died in December 1940 after a botched hospital operation, Vita in an obituary described her characteristically as a "sturdy little pony". Pepita relates the love affair of the author's grandfather Lord Sackville and Pepita, the Spanish dancer.
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