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Hauntings and Other Fantastic Tales
About This Book
Vernon Lee writes in the Preface to Hauntings, "My ghosts are what you call spurious ghosts... of whom I can affirm only one thing, that they haunted certain brains, and have haunted, among others, my own." First published in 1890, Lee's most famous volume of supernatural tales occupies a special place in the literature of the fantastic for its treatment of the femme fatale and the allure of the past, along with the themes of thwarted artistic creativity and psychological obsession. This collection, which includes the four stories originally published in Hauntings and three others, enables readers to consider Lee's work anew for its subtle redefinitions of gender and sexuality during the Victorian fin-de-siĆØcle.
The appendices, which include extensive excerpts from writings by Lee's predecessors and peers, including Algernon Charles Swinburne, Walter Pater, and Lee's brother Eugene Lee-Hamilton, allow the reader to see how Lee takes on the themes and preoccupations of the late-Victorian period but adapts them to her own purposes.
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Table of contents
- Title Page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Vernon Lee: A Brief Chronology
- A Note on the Texts
- Hauntings and Other Fantastic Tales
- Appendix A: From Algernon Charles Swinburne, āNotes on Designs of the Old Masters at Florenceā (1868, 1875)
- Appendix B: From Walter Pater,āPico della Mirandulaā (1871, 1873)
- Appendix C: From Walter Pater,āLionardo da Vinciā (1869,1873)
- Appendix D:Vernon Lee,āFaustus and Helena: Notes on the Supernatural in Artā (1880, 1881)
- Appendix E: A. Mary F. Robinson,āBefore a Bust of Venus (Found in a Greek Vineyard,A.D. 900)ā (1881)
- Appendix F: Eugene Lee-Hamilton, āThe Mandolinā (A.D. 1559) (1882)
- Appendix G:A. Mary F. Robinson,āThe Ladies of Milanā (1889)
- Appendix H: Eugene Lee-Hamilton,āOn a Surf-Rolled Torso of Venusā (1884, 1894)
- Appendix I:Vernon Lee, āOut of Venice at Lastā (1925)
- Bibliography