Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Vernon Lee
-
Standard Name: Lee, Vernon
Birth Name: Violet Paget
Pseudonym: Vernon Lee
VL
's writing career spanned more than five decades during the later the nineteenth century and the earlier twentieth. She wrote critical monographs, essays, and reviews (on aesthetics, politics, and history), as well as short stories, novels, and drama. Much of her work is currently out of print. However two books published in 2003 mark a renewed interest in Lee's life's work: Vernon Lee: A Literary Biography by Vineta Colby
, and Vernon Lee: Aesthetics, History, and the Victorian Female Intellectual by Christa Zorn
.
"Vernon Lee" Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/John_Singer_Sargent_002.jpg/618px-John_Singer_Sargent_002.jpg.This work is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license. This work is in the public domain.
Nothing is known of MB
's sexuality, but the homosociality of some of her love poetry and her connection to Vernon Lee
's circle is suggestive.
Dedications
A. Mary F. Robinson
Several of these poems are addressed to her friend Vernon Lee
.
Leighton, Angela, and Margaret Reynolds, editors. Victorian Women Poets: An Anthology. Blackwell, 1995.
538
Dedications
A. Mary F. Robinson
AMFR
published a book of criticism on French literature, The French Procession, A Pageant of Great Writers, with a dedication to Vernon Lee
.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
240
Family and Intimate relationships
Mathilde Blind
MB
also had a half-brother from her mother's second marriage, Rudolph Blind
, who was an artist. Vernon Lee
pronounced him an awful little snob.
Demoor, Marysa. “Women Poets as Critics in the <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘j’>Athenæum</span>: Ungendered Anonymity Unmasked”. Nineteenth-Century Prose, Vol.
24
, No. 1, pp. 51-71.
53, 69n11
Family and Intimate relationships
A. Mary F. Robinson
AMFR
married James Darmesteter
after a brief courtship; it was said that she had proposed to him, in August 1887, shortly after their first meeting at the British Museum
.
Sources disagree on the date...
Family and Intimate relationships
A. Mary F. Robinson
AMFR
had met the poet Vernon Lee
by 1878 (a little earlier than is often supposed), the year she turned twenty-one, since her first publication includes poems addressed to Lee. They became close friends and...
Family and Intimate relationships
Amy Levy
AL
addressed letters and love-poems to the writer Vernon Lee
, whom she had met that spring in Florence, and for whom she cherished an unrequited love.
Beckman, Linda Hunt. Amy Levy: Her Life and Letters. Ohio University Press, 2000.
254-5, 119-21
Family and Intimate relationships
A. Mary F. Robinson
By 22 July 1882 AMFR
and Vernon Lee
were staying for a holiday at a rented cottage in Sussex.
Zorn, Christa. Vernon Lee: Aesthetics, History, and the Victorian Female Intellectual. Ohio University Press, 2003.
8
Reportedly, Lee whisked her friend away from London because she felt that the literary...
Friends, Associates
Susan Tweedsmuir
ST
's parents made connections through friendship as remarkable as those made for them by family descent. Her mother was a friend of many writers and intellectuals of both sexes, including Marie Belloc Lowndes
,...
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Her travels enabled her to meet [w]omen from all over the world, fine women, thoughtful progressive women!
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. An Autobiography. Editor Lane, Ann J., University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.
Vernon Lee
, likely in love with AMFR
herself, suffered a breakdown when her friend's engagement to Darmesteter
was announced, and after this she never fully regained her health. The two friends, however, remained in...
LV
and her husband were both friends of Vernon Lee
, accepting her hospitality and moving in the same circles.
Gunn, Peter. Vernon Lee: Violet Paget, 1856-1935. Oxford University Press, 1964.
96
Lee corresponded with LV
from the late 1870s to the early 1880s and discussed...
Friends, Associates
Emilie Barrington
EB
was criticised by some in her own day and has been further criticised for pursuing famous people in a lion-hunting spirit. Vernon Lee
called her a sort of King Charles dog of the neighbouring...
Friends, Associates
Mary Agnes Hamilton
The day after war was declared, MAH
was taken to meet Vernon Lee
, a writer she much admired, who was then staying at the London home (44 Bedford Square) of Lady Ottoline
and Philip Morrell
.
Hamilton, Mary Agnes. Remembering My Good Friends. Jonathan Cape, 1944.
73
Timeline
1895
Thomas Bird Mosher
of Portland, Maine, began publishing The Bibelot. A Reprint of Poetry & Prose for Book Lovers, a monthly series later collected as an annual volume, of exquisitely produced editions in tiny press-runs.
5 March 1946
Winston Churchill
made a famous speech in Fulton, Missouri, in which he described an iron curtain coming down across Europe, dividing the east from the west.
