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Violet Paget (Vernon Lee) (1856
- 1935)
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Names Index:
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 The
Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories by Michael Cox
(Editor), R. A. Gilbert (Editor)
With their evocative settings amid mists and
shadows, in ruinous houses, on lonely roads and wild moorlands, in
abandoned churches and over-grown gardens, ghost stories have long
exercised a universal fascination. Responding to people's
overwhelming attraction to anything frightening, this marvelous
anthology of some of the very best English ghost stories combines
a serious literary purpose with the simple intention of arousing a
pleasurable fear of the doings of the dead.
This anthology includes "A Wicked
Voice," by Vernon Lee, from Hauntings, Fantastic
Stories, London: Heinemann, 1890
 Fantastic
Tales : Visionary and Everyday by Italo Calvino
(Editor)
Interestingly, some of the finest stories are by
authors least known in America. Théophile Gautier's beautifully
written, wrenchingly ironic "The Beautiful Vampire"
establishes the traditions for romantic vampire fiction. Mérimée's
"The Venus of Ille," a tale of culture clashes (Parisian
and rural, ancient classical, and contemporary Christian), is
sharp, well-written, and uncommonly horrific. With the gorgeous
"A Lasting Love," the sole woman contributor, Vernon
Lee, paints the most vivid portrait of obsessive, transcendent,
destructive love.
Caveat: Calvino's introductions sometimes reveal
more of the plot than readers will like. --Cynthia Ward
This anthology includes "A Lasting Love"
by Vernon Lee, 1890; “Amour Dure”.
Vernon Lee Bibliography:
Collections
Short Fiction
Also available:
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By Vernon Lee
In the year 1701, the Duchy of Luna became
united to the Italian dominions of the Holy Roman Empire, in
consequence of the extinction of its famous ducal house in the
persons of Duke Balthasar Maria and of his grandson Alberic, who
should have been third of the name. Under this dry historical fact
lies hidden the strange story of Prince Alberic and the Snake
Lady...
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From "Reading Wilde, Querying Spaces"
from New York University
Library
Excerpt:
Lady Tal in Vanitas: Polite Stories.
London: John Lane, 1911.
A short story written by Vernon Lee, aesthetic
critic and "New Woman" writer, "Lady Tal"
exposes the shaky borderline between art and life which Wilde also
shapeshifts against. Vernon Lee's story not only demonstrates the
culture of the chameleon, but also crosses the boundaries between
traditional male and female behavior, the indeterminacy of gender
underlying the indeterminate nature of art's relation to the life
it proposes to represent. Jervase Marion, a novelist very much
alike Henry James, is reduced by the end of the story to a
feminine caricature, nicknamed Maryanne by the handsome and
dashing neophyte writer, Lady Tal. Her story becomes his story, so
the masculine artist is shown to be entirely at the mercy of his
feminine object who is also an artist. Like Wilde, Vernon Lee asks
the question: How does one distinguish the artist from his art?
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Commentary by rbadac
Excerpt:
The ancient Gods & Goddesses, subsumed by
history, revisit us in imagination, & are every bit as
capricious as when their edicts & affairs emanated from
Olympian origins. In imagination they regain their lost fecundity
& potency; as myth they reflect human realities within godlike
frameworks, & as archetypes they persist in Deity within the
subconscious of human endeavor, which in the act of creation has
its own pretensions to godhood...
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Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
U V
W X
Y Z
| Authors
Index | Scholars
Index |
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