Vanitas: Polite Stories (ePub)

Vernon Lee, the pseudonym of Violet Paget (1856-1935), was a British writer known for her sharp intellect and a prolific body of work that included supernatural fiction, Italian history, and aesthetics. Born to expatriate parents in France, Lee maintained a lifelong connection with Italy, often reflected in her writing. She gained recognition for her incisive essays on art, music, and travel, but it was her contributions to the realm of supernatural and psychological fiction for which she is most remembered. Notably, her collection of tales 'Vanitas: Polite Stories' showcases Lee's distinctive literary style, marked by a blending of erudition with Gothic and Decadent themes. Her works often explored the subtleties of psychological experiences and esoteric scholarship. Lee's literary output was extensive, reflecting her deep knowledge of European culture and her feminist leanings, as demonstrated in her insistence on professional authorship as a woman in Victorian society. Embraced by the literary circles of her day, Lee's influence extended beyond literature into the realm of aesthetics, where she advanced the concept of 'empathy' (Einfühlung), which would later be absorbed into psychological theory. Her work has since been the subject of scholarly examination, lauding her as an under-recognized literary figure whose writing transcends the boundaries between genre fiction and intellectual discourse.