Books by Vernon Lee

A Phantom Lover (1886) is a story by Vernon Lee. Published at the height of her career as a leading proponent of Aestheticism and scholar of the Italian Renaissance, A Phantom Lover is a chilling tale of psychological unease featuring a strange married couple and a doppelganger from across the centuries. A principled feminist and committed pacifist, Lee was virtually blacklisted by critics and publishers following her opposition to the First World War. Through the efforts of dedicated scholars, however, interest in her works has increased over the past several decades, granting her the readership she deserves as a master of literary horror. ¿Yes; I began the picture, but it was never finished. I did the husband first. I wonder who has his likeness now? Help me to move these pictures away from the wall. Thanks. This is her portrait; a huge wreck. I don't suppose you can make much of it; it is merely blocked in, and seems quite mad.¿ Vernon Lee¿s world is one where ghosts and humans walk together, often without taking notice of one another. In those instances when they do, however, strange and terrible things are likely to occur. In this story, a painter in desperate need of a commission accepts the opportunity to paint the portraits of William and Alice Okehurst. At their rural home, he attempts to get to know them before sitting down for the long sessions required in his line of work. Taking note of William¿s jealousy, he soon understands why: Alice is a strikingly beautiful woman. Obsessed with an ancestor from the seventeenth century, also named Alice, Mrs. Okehurst wears ornate antique dresses and carries herself with the air of a woman not quite of this world. A Phantom Lover is a masterful work from the mind of Vernon Lee, one of history¿s most terrifying storytellers. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Vernon Lee¿s A Phantom Lover is a classic work of supernatural fiction reimagined for modern readers.

Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget (1856-1935). She is remembered today primarily for her supernatural fiction and her work on aesthetics. An early follower of Walter Pater, she wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music, and travel. Violet Paget was born in France on 14 October 1856, at Château St Leonard, Boulogne, 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.

If you are the housewife of a very good, very kind husband, parade your bad attitude in the most careless fashion possible. Refuse to have children. Fall in love with the resident ghost. Obsess over your namesake, doppelgänger ancestor. Wear her musty clothes to the dinner party instead of the ones your husband wants you to wear. Stoke his jealousy for weeks. When he accuses you, gaslight him: “No one was walking with me near the pond, at five o’clock or any other hour.” Spend your days in the yellow room, luxuriating in love letters written to your beloved murderess. Do this all while eluding the gaze of the male portrait painter, yet another man who would define you.With echoes of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” A Phantom Lover creates an otherworldly space for this provocative femme fatale to live and love as she pleases.

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 and her work on aesthetics. An early follower of Walter Pater, she wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music, and travel. Her short fiction explored the themes of haunting and possession. The most famous were collected in Hauntings (1890) and her story "Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady" (1895) was first printed in the notorious The Yellow Book.

This collection of Vernon Lee's uniquely weird short stories and dark fantasies proves why she was once considered among the best of the genre, and why she deserves to return to those ranks today.