Author Description

More than a quarter of a century has elapsed since the death of Vernon Lee (Violet Paget), who was born in 1856 and died in 1935, but this is the first biography of one of the most brilliant and gifted women of her time. Vernon Lee emerges from Mr. Gunn's sympathetic but penetrating study as an extremely formidable blue-stocking, out-spoken and candid in her comments on her contemporaries yet with an intellect so sharp and original that she is shown to deserve the respect for her integrity which she won in her early youth with Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy and retained throughout her long life as an author. Mr. Gunn, who already has to his credit a successful book on Naples, has been allowed access to Vernon Lee's private papers at Colby college, Waterville, Maine, and his book contains fascinating detail concerning her relationships with many well-known people, including J.S. Sargent, Henry James, H.G. Wells, Bernard Shaw, Maurice Baring, and Bernard Berenson.