Edith Louisa Sitwell was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England on September 7, 1887. She was the eldest child and only daughter of Sir George Reresby Sitwell, Fourth Baronet, and his wife Lady Ida Emily Augusta Denison Sitwell. Sitwell and her two brothers, Osbert and Sacheverell, became known for their avant-garde literary work.

Sitwell was a poet, critic, and biographer. She published one of her earliest poems, "Drowned Suns," in The Daily Mirror in 1913 and her first volume of poetry, The Mother and Other Poems in 1915. Some of her other lyrical works include Clown's Houses, The Wooden Pegasus, Façade, and Bucolic Comedies.

Sitwell gained wide recognition in 1923 following her controversial reading of Façade, which was the result of her collaboration with composer William Walton. Some of her best known works are Bucolic Comedies, The Sleeping Beauty, and Troy Park. Sitwell also wrote a biography of Alexander Pope in 1930 and began to receive acclaim for her work. She received the Royal Society of Literature medal in 1933, along with honorary degrees from Leeds University, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Oxford, and Sheffield University. In 1954 she was made Dame of the British Empire.

Sitwell converted to Catholicism in 1955 and continued to publish, including a biography about Queen Elizabeth of England and Queen Mary of Scotland called The Queen and the Hive.

Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell died on December 9, 1964 at the age of 77.

Source:

Cevasco, G. A.. "Sitwell, Dame Edith Louisa (1887–1964)." In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed., edited by Lawrence Goldman, May 2006. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/36113 (accessed April 9, 2007).