Vernon Lee

LAUREL BRAKE Professor in Literature and Print Culture at Birkbeck College, University of London, UKJO BRIGGS PhD student at Yale University, USAGRACE BROCKINGTON British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Clare College, Cambridge, UKDENNIS DENISOFF Ryerson Chair in the English Department and Graduate Programme in Communications and Culture at Ryerson University, Toronto, CanadaSTEFANO EVANGELISTA Fitzjames Research Fellow in English at Merton College, Oxford, UKMARGARET D. STETZ Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and Professor of Humanities at the University of Delaware, USACATHERINE ANNE WILEY Visiting Assistant Professor at Temple University, Philadelphia, USACHRISTA ZORN Associate Professor of English and Co-ordinator of Women and Gender Studies at Indiana University Southeast, New Albany, USA

• List of Illustrations Preface and Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors A Vernon Lee Chronology Introduction; C.Maxwell & P.Pulham CREATIVE CONNECTIONS Vernon Lee and Eugene Lee-Hamilton; C.Maxwell Vernon Lee and the Pater Circle; L.Brake DECADENT DISSOLUTIONS 'Warming Me Like a Cordial': The Ethos of the Body in Vernon Lee's Aesthetics; C.A.Wiley Vernon Lee, Decadent Contamination and the Productivist Ethos; D.Denisoff QUEER CONTEXTS Vernon Lee and the Gender of Aestheticism; S.Evangelista The Snake Lady and the Bruised Bodley Head: Vernon Lee and Oscar Wilde in the Yellow Book ; M.D.Stetz Duality and Desire in Louis Norbert ; P.Pulham ART AND ARGUMENT Performing Pacifism: The Battle between The Artist and Author in The Ballet of the Nations ; G.Brockington Plural Anomalies: Gender and Sexuality in Bio-Critical Readings of Vernon Lee; J.Briggs The Handling of Words : Reader Response Victorian Style; C.Zorn Bibliography Index

'Vernon Lee: Decadence, Ethics, Aesthetics... plays an integral role in reinvigorating the literary reputation of one of the most important late-Victorian women writers.' - Kristin Mahoney, Victorian Studies'a thoroughly stimulating, cogent, highly readable collection of essays, that will undoubtedly attract further critical attention to one of the most original interdisciplinary thinkers of her generation' - Shafquat Towheed, Nineteenth-Century Literature'Maxwell and Pulham's joint Introduction sets the agenda with a rich biographical, cultural and critical contextualisation of Lee and her works... Catherine Maxwell and Patricia Pulham as well as Palgrave...are to be commended.' - Matthew Mitton, Women: A Cultural Review