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
.
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...
Friends, Associates
A. Mary F. Robinson
In June 1881 Vernon Lee
stayed with AMFR
's family in London. The next month the friends visited Oxford with Mary's sister Mabel
. Their Oxford social life included attending a dinner party hosted by...
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.
8
Reportedly, Lee whisked her friend away from London because she felt that the literary...
Travel
A. Mary F. Robinson
After a short visit to Paris during the summer of 1887, AMFR
and Vernon Lee
met up and went to Italy, where they stayed in Florence with Lee's family. This was probably their last time...
Friends, Associates
A. Mary F. Robinson
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...
Residence
A. Mary F. Robinson
After marrying Duclaux, she lived with him near Olmet, a tiny hill village in Cantal, a mountainous sub-region of the Auvergne in France. Her old friend Vernon Lee
spent six weeks with them...
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.
538
Literary Setting
A. Mary F. Robinson
The Red Clove, set in Italy, is dedicated to Vernon Lee
,, while Two Sisters, a memory of childhood, addresses Robinson's sister Mabel
. Several poems draw heavily on the world of...
Textual Features
A. Mary F. Robinson
She dedicates A Ballad of Forgotten Tunes to Vernon Lee
, and addresses her by name in its closing stanza. She parodies the style of Pope
in Celia's Homecoming, written for her sister Mabel
Textual Features
A. Mary F. Robinson
Our Lady of the Broken Heart, the garden play mentioned in the volume title, is set in a public Italian garden during the seventeenth century, or any time.
Robinson, A. Mary F. Songs, Ballads, and a Garden Play. T. Fisher Unwin.
In November AMFR
adapted the story of the Magi or the Three Kings as an item in the Contemporary Review's set of Christmas legends. The story, called a The Three Kings, contains a...
Publishing
A. Mary F. Robinson
The next year Robinson published a collection of historical writing, The Fields of France: Little Essays in Descriptive Sociology. Another collection of poetry, The Return to Nature: Songs and Symbols (1904), was dedicated...
The Congress, held from 28 April to 1 May, attracted 1,200 women from twelve countries, both warring and neutral, to discuss means of achieving peace. Others meeting with the delegates on the subsequent peace tour...
