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, 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. 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 in the Palmerino villa from 1889 until her death at San Gervasio, with a brief interruption during World War I. 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, 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 organisation, the Union of Democratic Control. Scholars speculate that Lee was a lesbian, and had long-term intense relationships with three women, Mary Robinson,

Clementina Anstruther-Thomson Clementina "Kit" Caroline Anstruther-Thomson (1857–1921) was a Scottish author and art theorist. She was known for writing and lecturing on experimental aesthetics during the Victorian era. Her collaboration with Vernon Lee in the 1890s inspi ...

, and British author,

Amy Levy Amy Judith Levy (10 November 1861 – 9 September 1889) was an English essayist, poet, and novelist best remembered for her literary gifts; her experience as the second Jewish woman at Cambridge University, and as the first Jewish student at N ...

. 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, 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' into the study of aesthetics 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,

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 Karl Groos (10 December 1861, in Heidelberg – 27 March 1946, in Tübingen) was a German philosopher and psychologist who proposed an evolutionary instrumentalist theory of play. His 1898 book on ''The Play of Animals'' suggested that play is a ...

. 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, 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 Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century which privileged the aesthetic value of literature, music and the arts over their socio-political functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be prod ...

, and after a lengthy written correspondence met the movement's effective leader, Walter Pater, 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.

Critical reception

The English writer and translator Montague Summers 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.

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 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. * ''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