Vernon Lee

Violet Paget (14 October 1856 – 13 February 1935), known by the pseudonym Vernon Lee, was a French-born British art historian and writer. 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.

Early life

Lee was born Violet Paget on 14 October 1856 at Château St Léonard, near Boulogne-sur-Mer to Henry Ferguson Paget (1820–1894) and Matilda Paget (née Adams, formerly Lee-Hamilton; 1815–1896). Lee's father is believed to have been raised in Warsaw as the son of French nobleman. The maternal granddaughter of Edward Hamlyn Adams, a lawyer, slave contractor and politician, Lee was cousin of the suffragist, women’s rights campaigner and feminist Alice Abadam. Through her mother's first marriage, Lee was the half-sister of the poet Eugene Lee-Hamilton.

Career

Although she primarily wrote for an English readership and made many visits to London, she spent the majority of her life on the continent in Europe, particularly in Italy.

Her longest residence was at Villa Il Palmerino just outside Florence, from 1889 until her death at San Gervasio Bresciano in 1935, with a brief interruption during the First World War. 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 and the learned Mario Praz, and she encouraged his love of learning and English literature.