Love. Perhaps the one word solution for everything. An emotion, a state of mind that we strive for, search for. A wondrous force that binds, inspires, and a force that can spin out of control; unbalanced and fragile. Love reflects, changes and embraces us all. In this series we explore the many facets of love through literary talents that span both time and country. Love is good. It’s positive, a source of joy, nourishment and all over goodness. But sometimes other more malevolent forces come to play. They infect that love, they see their form as better. Instinctively we would shy away but sometimes its pull is too powerful, almost attractive. We are drawn closer into the shadows.1 - Dark Love - Short Stories - An Introduction2 - St Johns Eve by Nikolai Gogol3 - Rappaccini's Daughter - Part 1 by Nathaniel Hawthorne4 - Rappaccini's Daughter - Part 2 by Nathaniel Hawthorne5 - The Mortal Immortal by Mary Shelley6 - The Mass of Shadows by Anatole France7 - From the Dead by Edith Nesbit8 - Lost in a Pyramid (or, The Mummy's Curse) by Louisa May Alcott writing as A M Bernard9 - Amour Dure - Part 1 by Violet Paget writing as Vernon Lee10 - Amour Dure - Part 2 by Violet Paget writing as Vernon Lee11 - The Phantom Rickshaw by Rudyard Kipling12 - The Force of Blood by Miguel de Cervantes13 - Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter by Sheridan Le Fanu14 - The Dream Woman by Wilkie Collins15 - The Cold Embrace by Mary Elizabeth Braddon16 - The Devil's Mother-in-Law by Fernan Caballeron17 - An Alpine Divorce by Robert Barr18 - The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce19 - The Story of Salome by Amelia Edwards20 - The Ebony Frame by Edith Nesbit21 - The Second Generation by Algernon Blackwood22 - Wake Not the Dead - Part 1 by Ernst Raupach23 - Wake Not the Dead - Part 2 by Ernst Raupach24 - The Vampire Maid by Hume Nisbet25 - Vampirismus or Aurelia by E T A Hoffman26 - Uncle Abraham's Romance by Edith Nesbit27 - Dionea - Part 1 by Vernon Lee28 - Dionea - Part 2 by Vernon Lee
Amy Levy. Vernon Lee died on 13th February 1935 in San Gervasio Bresciano|France to intellectual expatriate British parents. In common with several other very talented literary women of the day she felt it necessary to publish under a masculine pseudonym in order for her writing to be taken seriously. Indeed she seems to have adopted that persona across her whole lifestyle becoming personally known and acknowledged by all as Vernon Lee and accordingly dressed as a man. Her first published work|Italy.1 - Vernon Lee - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction2 - A Wicked Voice - Part 1 by Vernon Lee3 - A Wicked Voice - Part 2 by Vernon Lee4 - Amour Dure - Part 1 by Violet Paget writing as Vernon Lee5 - Amour Dure - Part 2 by Violet Paget writing as Vernon Lee6 - Marsyas in Flanders by Vernon Lee7 - The Enchanted Woods by Vernon Lee8 - Dionea - Part 1 by Vernon Lee9 - Dionea - Part 2 by Vernon Lee|Vernon Lee was born Violet Paget on 4th October 1856 in Boulogne|and travel with her scholarly appreciation animated by wit and imagination. Lee was well-regarded as an expert on the Italian Renaissance and was a proponent of the Aesthetic movement.Her literary talents were extensive and she wrote a number of novels and plays. Perhaps her best remembered works are her haunting and powerful short stories exploring the supernatural. Lee has often received accolades for these and glowingly compared to other authors such as M R James. A committed pacifist she was resolved to protest against World War I. Her social activism in other areas was perhaps fueled by her feminist beliefs. In her private life she was a lesbian and had long-term passionate relationships with three women including the doomed author and poet|in 1880|music|was taken from her collection of essays that had originally appeared in Fraser's Magazine with the scholarly title of; 'Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy.' It reflected her passion for music and centered on the rich creative lives of poet-librettist Pietro Metastasio and dramatists Carlo Goldoni and Carlo Gozzi. She wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art
During her lifetime Violet Paget, who wrote as Vernon Lee, was referred to as 'the greatest of modern exponents of the supernatural in fiction', and yet today she remains on the periphery of the genre. This collection of her uniquely weird short stories and dark fantasies proves why she was once considered among the best of the genre, and why she deserves to return to those ranks today. From modernised folk tales such as 'Marsyas in Flanders' and 'The Legend of Madame Krasinska' to ingenious psychological hauntings such as the titular 'A Phantom Lover' and 'A Wicked Voice', Lee's own voice is just as distinctive and captivating - her weird imaginings just as freshly unsettling - as in her fin-de-siècle heyday.
Vernon Lee was born Violet Paget on 4th October 1856 in Boulogne, France to intellectual expatriate British parents. In common with several other very talented literary women of the day she felt it necessary to publish under a masculine pseudonym in order for her writing to be taken seriously. Indeed she seems to have adopted that persona across her whole lifestyle becoming personally known and acknowledged by all as Vernon Lee and accordingly dressed as a man. Her first published work, in 1880, was taken from her collection of essays that had originally appeared in Fraser's Magazine with the scholarly title of; 'Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy.' It reflected her passion for music and centered on the rich creative lives of poet-librettist Pietro Metastasio and dramatists Carlo Goldoni and Carlo Gozzi. She wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music, and travel with her scholarly appreciation animated by wit and imagination. Lee was well-regarded as an expert on the Italian Renaissance and was a proponent of the Aesthetic movement.Her literary talents were extensive and she wrote a number of novels and plays. Perhaps her best remembered works are her haunting and powerful short stories exploring the supernatural. Lee has often received accolades for these and glowingly compared to other authors such as M R James. A committed pacifist she was resolved to protest against World War I. Her social activism in other areas was perhaps fueled by her feminist beliefs. In her private life she was a lesbian and had long-term passionate relationships with three women including the doomed author and poet, Amy Levy. Vernon Lee died on 13th February 1935 in San Gervasio Bresciano, Italy.
A Wicked Voice is the tale of a composer haunted by the music of the eighteenth century, and by the exquisite voice of a singer of that period who reputedly sang so beautifully his songs could (quite literally) kill with their beauty.
A Polish historian visiting Italy falls in love with a sixteenth century femme fatale, who murdered a series of enthralled husbands and lovers. When he experiences visions of the beautiful Medea Da Carpi, it slowly turns his scholarly fascination into a fatal obsession.
Amour Dure is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.
"Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of Violet Paget (1856 - 1935), a British writer most famous for her supernatural short stories. She was a leading figure in the aesthetic movement.
"Marsyas in Flanders" is a strange tale of an ancient carving of the crucified Christ - minus its arms and cross - which once washed up in the twelfth century on a beach in Flanders. Once ownership of the relic is established, it is hung in the local church at Dunes... and before long strange miracles begin to take place, which rapidly turns the minor fishing village into a place of pilgrimage and worship. But the miracles become stranger and more threatening, demonic even, in nature... and the church authorities are forced to step in and investigate. What they find causes them to take very drastic action..."
