Vernon Lee, Miss Brown

Michele Brugnetti (Università di Roma 'La Sapienza')

Ed. by Jessica Gossling, Goldsmiths College, University of London
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Birmingham Newman University), Louise McDonald (Birmingham Newman University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1884

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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When Henry James finally decided to write to Vernon Lee (pseudonym of Violet Paget) about

Miss Brown

(1884), her first novel and one she had dedicated to him “for good luck”, he somewhat managed to dilute the harshness of his judgement by remarking that:

The imperfection of the book seems to me to reside […] in a certain ferocity. It will probably already have been repeated to you to satiety that you take the aesthetic business too seriously, too tragically, and above all with too great implication of sexual motives […] You have impregnated all those people too much with the sexual, the basely erotic preoccupation: your hand was too violent, the touch of life is lighter […] perhaps you have been too much in a moral passion! […] Cool first – write afterwards. Morality is hot

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2510 words

Citation: Brugnetti, Michele. "Miss Brown". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 July 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41559, accessed 27 July 2024.]

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