Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget (14 October 1856 – 13 February 1935). She is remembered today primarily for her

supernatural fiction Supernatural fiction or supernaturalist fiction is a genre of speculative fiction that exploits or is centered on supernatural themes, often contradicting naturalist assumptions of the real world. Description In its broadest definition, supe ...

and her work on aesthetics. An early follower of

Walter Pater Walter Horatio Pater (4 August 1839 – 30 July 1894) was an English essayist, art critic and literary critic, and fiction writer, regarded as one of the great stylists. His first and most often reprinted book, ''Studies in the History of the Re ...

, she wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music, and travel.

Biography

Violet Paget was born in France on 14 October 1856, at Château St Leonard,

Boulogne Boulogne-sur-Mer (; pcd, Boulonne-su-Mér; nl, Bonen; la, Gesoriacum or ''Bononia''), often called just Boulogne (, ), is a coastal city in Northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department of Pas-de-Calais. Boulogne lies on the ...

, to British expatriate parents, Henry Ferguson Paget and Matilda Lee-Hamilton (née Abadam). Violet Paget was the half-sister of Eugene Jacob Lee-Hamilton (1845–1907) by her mother's first marriage, and from whose surname she adapted her own

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

. Although she primarily wrote for an English readership and made many visits to London, she spent the majority of her life on the continent, particularly in Italy. III Villa il Palmerino, Firenze, Italy (2)

III Villa il Palmerino, Firenze, Italy (2)

Her longest residence was just outside

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

in the Palmerino villa from 1889 until her death at San Gervasio, with a brief interruption during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Her library was left to the British Institute of Florence and can still be inspected by visitors. In Florence she knit lasting friendships with the painter

Telemaco Signorini Telemaco Signorini (; August 18, 1835 – February 10, 1901) was an Italian artist who belonged to the group known as the Macchiaioli. Biography He was born in the Santa Croce quarter of Florence, and showed an early inclination toward the st ...

and the learned

Mario Praz Mario Praz (; September 6, 1896, Rome – March 23, 1982, Rome) was an Italian-born critic of art and literature, and a scholar of English literature. His best-known book, ''The Romantic Agony'' (1933), was a comprehensive survey of the decadent ...

, and she encouraged his love of learning and English literature. An engaged feminist, she always dressed à la garçonne. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Lee adopted strong

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...

views, and was a member of the

anti-militarist Antimilitarism (also spelt anti-militarism) is a doctrine that opposes war, relying heavily on a critical theory of imperialism and was an explicit goal of the First and Second International. Whereas pacifism is the doctrine that disputes (esp ...

organisation, the

Union of Democratic Control The Union of Democratic Control was a British advocacy group, pressure group formed in 1914 to press for a more responsive foreign policy. While not a pacifism, pacifist organisation, it was opposed to military influence in government. World War ...

. Scholars speculate that Lee was a lesbian, and had long-term intense relationships with three women,

Mary Robinson Mary Therese Winifred Robinson ( ga, Máire Mhic Róibín; ; born 21 May 1944) is an Irish politician who was the 7th president of Ireland, serving from December 1990 to September 1997, the first woman to hold this office. Prior to her electi ...

, Clementina Anstruther-Thomson, and British author, Amy Levy. Lee however, in addition to taking on the name Vernon in her private life, resisted being mislabelled as a lesbian by her own peers. She played the harpsichord and her appreciation of music animates her first major work, ''Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy'' (1880). In her preface to the second edition of 1907, she recalled her excitement as a girl when she came across a bundle of 18th-century music. She was so nervous that it wouldn't live up to her expectations that she escaped to the garden and listened rapturously through an open window as her mother worked out the music on the piano. Along with Pater and

John Addington Symonds John Addington Symonds, Jr. (; 5 October 1840 – 19 April 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. A cultural historian, he was known for his work on the Renaissance, as well as numerous biographies of writers and artists. Although m ...

, she was considered an authority on the Italian

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

, and wrote two works that dealt with it explicitly, ''Euphorion'' (1884) and ''Renaissance Fancies and Studies'' (1895). Her short fiction explored the themes of haunting and possession. She dedicated her short ghost story ''A Wicked Voice'' to composer

Mary Augusta Wakefield Mary Augusta Wakefield (19 August 1853 – 16 September 1910) was a British composer, contralto, festival organiser, and writer. Biography Early life Wakefield was born in Kendal, where her paternal ancestors had been members of the Quaker ...

in 1887. The most famous stories were collected in ''Hauntings'' (1890) and her story "Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady" (1895) was first printed in the notorious ''

The Yellow Book ''The Yellow Book'' was a British quarterly literary periodical that was published in London from 1894 to 1897. It was published at The Bodley Head Publishing House by Elkin Mathews and John Lane, and later by John Lane alone, and edited by th ...

''. She was instrumental in the introduction of the German concept of 'Einfühlung', or '

empathy Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, co ...

' into the study of

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

in the English-speaking world. She developed her own theory of psychological aesthetics in collaboration with her lover, Kit Anstruther-Thomson, based on previous works by

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...

Theodor Lipps Theodor Lipps (; 28 July 1851 – 17 October 1914) was a Germans, German philosopher, famed for his theory regarding aesthetics, creating the framework for the concept of ''Einfühlung'' (empathy)'','' defined as, "projecting oneself onto the ob ...

, and Karl Groos. She claimed that spectators "empathise" with works of art when they call up memories and associations and cause often unconscious bodily changes in posture and breathing. She was known for her numerous essays about travel in Italy, France, Germany, and Switzerland, which attempted to capture the psychological effects of places rather than to convey any particular piece of information. Like her friend

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

, she wrote critically about the relationship between writers and their audience, pioneering the idea of critical assessment among all the arts as relating to an audience's personal response. She was a proponent of the Aesthetic movement, and after a lengthy written correspondence met the movement's effective leader,

, in England in 1881, just after encountering one of Pater's most famous disciples,

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

. Her open resistance against World War I and her work '' Satan the Waster'' led to her being ostracized by the younger generation of scholars and writers. Feminist research led to a rediscovery since the 1990s. Much of her incoming personal correspondence are preserved in

Somerville College Library Somerville College Library is the college library of Somerville College, one of the 38 colleges of the University of Oxford. The library is one of the largest college libraries at the University of Oxford and has achieved 100% student satisfacti ...

Critical reception

The English writer and translator

Montague Summers Augustus Montague Summers (10 April 1880 – 10 August 1948) was an English author, clergyman, and teacher. He initially prepared for a career in the Church of England at Oxford and Lichfield, and was ordained as an Anglican deacon in 1908. He ...

described Vernon Lee as "the greatest ..of modern exponents of the supernatural in fiction." Summers also compared Lee's work to that of

M. R. James Montague Rhodes James (1 August 1862 – 12 June 1936) was an English author, medievalist scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918), and of Eton College (1918–1936). He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambrid ...

E. F. Bleiler Everett Franklin Bleiler (April 30, 1920 – June 13, 2010) was an American editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" s ...

has claimed that "Lee's stories are really in a category by themselves. Intelligent, amusingly ironic, imaginative, original, they deserve more than the passing attention that they have attracted".

Neil Barron Richard Neil Barron (23 March 1934 - 5 September 2010) was a science fiction bibliographer and scholar. His training was as a librarian. He is perhaps best known for his book '' Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction''. He won the ...

described the contents of Lee's collection ''Hauntings'' thus "The stories are powerful and very striking, among the finest of their kind."

Works

* ''Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy ''(1880) * ''A Culture-Ghost; or, Winthrop's Adventure ''(1881) novella published in the April 1881 issue of

Appletons' Journal ''Appletons' Journal'' was an American magazine of literature, science, and arts. Published by D. Appleton & Company and debuting on April 3, 1869, its first editor was Edward L. Youmans, followed by Robert Carter, Oliver Bell Bunce, and Charl ...

. * ''Belcaro, Being Essays on Sundry Aesthetical Questions ''(1881) * ''Ottilie: An Eighteenth Century Idyl ''(1883) * ''The Prince of the Hundred Soups: A Puppet Show in Narrative ''(1883) * ''The Countess of Albany ''(1884) * ''Miss Brown ''(1884) novel * ''Euphorion: Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the Renaissance'' (1884) * ''Baldwin: Being Dialogues on Views and Aspirations ''(1886) * ''A Phantom Lover: A Fantastic Story ''(1886) novella, also Oke of Okehurst, Alice Oke * ''Juvenilia, Being a second series of essays on sundry aesthetical questions ''(1887) * ''Hauntings. Fantastic Stories ''(1890) * ''Vanitas: Polite Stories ''(1892) * ''Althea: Dialogues on Aspirations & Duties ''(1894) * ''Renaissance Fancies And Studies Being A Sequel To Euphorion ''(1895) * ''Art and Life ''(1896) * ''Limbo and Other Essays ''(1897) * ''Genius Loci: Notes on Places ''(1899) travel essays * ''The Child In The Vatican ''(1900) * ''In Umbria: A Study of Artistic Personality ''(1901) * ''Chapelmaster Kreisler A Study of Musical Romanticists ''(1901) * ''Penelope Brandling: A Tale of the Welsh Coast in the Eighteenth Century ''(1903) * ''The Legend of Madame Krasinska ''(1903) * ''Ariadne in Mantua: a Romance in Five Acts ''(1903) * ''Hortus Vitae: Essays on the Gardening of life ''(1903) * ''Pope Jacynth – And Other Fantastic Tales ''(1904) * ''The Enchanted Woods, and Other Essays on the Genius of Places ''(1905) travel essays * ''Sister Benvenuta and the Christ Child, an eighteenth-century legend ''(1906) * ''The Spirit of Rome: Leaves from a Diary ''(1906) * ''Ravenna and Her Ghosts ''(1907) * ''The Sentimental Traveller . Notes on Places ''(1908) travel essays * ''Gospels of Anarchy & Other Contemporary Studies ''(1908) * ''Laurus Nobilis: Chapters on Art and Life ''(1909) * ''In Praise of Old Gardens ''(1912) with others * ''Beauty and Ugliness and Other Studies in Psychological Aesthetics ''(1912) with Clementine Anstruther-Thomson * ''Vital Lies: Studies of Some Varieties of Recent Obscurantism ''(1912) * ''The Beautiful. An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics ''(1913) * ''The Tower of the Mirrors and Other Essays on the Spirit of Places ''(1914) travel essays * ''Louis Norbert. A Twofold Romance ''(1914) novel * ''The Ballet of the Nations. A Present-Day Morality ''(1915) illustrations by

Maxwell Armfield Maxwell Ashby Armfield (5 October 1881 – 23 January 1972) was an English artist, illustrator and writer. Life Born to a Quaker family in Ringwood, Hampshire, Armfield was educated at Sidcot School and at Leighton Park School. In 1887 he was ...

* ''Satan the Waster: A Philosophic War Trilogy ''(1920) * ''The Handling of Words and Other Studies in Literary Psychology ''(1923) * ''Proteus or The Future Of Intelligence ''(1925) * ''The Golden Keys and Other Essays on the Genius Loci ''(1925) travel essays * ''The Poet's Eye, Notes on Some Differences Between Verse and Prose ''(Hogarth Press, 1926) * ''For Maurice. Five Unlikely Stories ''(1927) * ''Music and its Lovers: An Empirical Study of Emotional and Imaginative Responses to Music ''(1932)

Editions published posthumously

* ''Snake Lady and Other Stories ''(1954) * ''Supernatural Tales ''(1955) * ''The Virgin of the Seven Daggers – And Other Chilling Tales of Mystery and Imagination ''(1962)

Bilingual editions

* ''Unsere Liebe Frau der Sieben Dolche / The Virgin of the Seven Daggers'', bilingual (German/English) edition. Calambac Verlag, Saarbrücken 2017. .

Notes and references

External links

* * * * *
Essays by Vernon Lee at Quotidiana.org
* * *
Play ''Ariadne in Mantua'' at Great War Theatre website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Vernon 1856 births 1935 deaths British essayists British poets British women novelists English feminists English pacifists English horror writers Ghost story writers English lesbian writers Pseudonymous women writers Victorian novelists Victorian women writers British women essayists British expatriates in Italy English LGBT poets English LGBT novelists People from Boulogne-sur-Mer Women horror writers British women poets 19th-century British women writers 20th-century British women writers 19th-century British writers 20th-century British writers Weird fiction writers 19th-century pseudonymous writers 20th-century pseudonymous writers