ISBN 978 0 7206 1194 6
Fiction
224pp
Paperback
£9.95
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Supernatural Tales

Vernon Lee

‘Her rich imagination and her beautiful use of words raise these stories into the ranks of genius.’ - John Betjeman, Daily Telegraph

These tales were written between 1881 and 1913 at a time when the literature of the fantastic was at its peak. Fusing the fantastic with the decadent era in the arts saw the creation of new artistic forms redolent with satanic imagery, morbid atmospheres and obsessive notions of decay. Soaked in the intoxicating warmth and aromas of Italian pastoral idylls, Vernon Lee’s stories are also pervaded by eerie or macabre sensations, particularly when the past suddenly intrudes into the life of her protagonists.

The stories are ‘Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady’, the tale of a handsome prince who falls for a beautiful woman who may well be a reptile; ‘A Wedding Chest’, a story of love and assasination; ‘Amour Dure’ tells of Medea Malatesta, a dangerous beauty so compelling that wretches under the torturer’s knife remain hopelessly faithful to her; ‘A Wicked Voice’, about a Norwegian composer whose style is corrupted by the ghostly voice of a male soprano; and ‘The ‘Legend of Madame Krasinka’, the tale of the American wife of a Polish count who is saved from hanging herself by the ghost of a beggar. The last story, ‘The Virgin of the Seven Daggers’, is an intricate admixture of several elements, part dream within a dream.

‘These short stories blaze with Mediterranean colour . . . the intensity of a Flaubert is offset by the devilish wink of a Saki. Lee’s endless invention and arrogant splendour of style make engrossing reading.' - Independent on Sunday

‘Quite literally bewildering supernatural tales, a kind of Italianate Arabian Nights . . . More than just rattling good yarns, these are works of extraordinary imagination, and one wonders why they’re not better known.’ - Gay Times

‘Edith Wharton and Vernon Lee belong to a ghostly sisterhood which, from the 1880s onwards, was to be responsible for much of the most interesting terror fiction.' - London Review of Books

VERNON LEE, the pseudonym of Violet Paget (1856 - 1935), began her career as an acclaimed art historian, before branching out into sociology and fiction. Among her many contemporary admirers were Browning, Walter Pater, Shaw, Whistler and Edith Wharton.