Hauntings
by Vernon Lee
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Though she initially rose to acclaim with the publication of a series of critical works focusing on the Italian Renaissance, Violet Paget (who wrote under the pen name Vernon Lee) later turned to fiction as a creative outlet. The sophisticated, spare ghost stories collected in Hauntings are more akin to the tales of psychological suspense crafted by her friend Henry James than to the lurid, sensationalistic tales written for mass consumption during the period..
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Hauntings is a collection of supernatural short-stories that remains on the threshold between the fantastic and the psychological. Perhaps ghosts and strange forces do exist here, but they’re always invited by the obsession, hatred and passion of the living.
In the first story, Amour Dure, a historian researching Medieval Italy falls in love with the portrait of a Machiavellian woman and becomes the means to carry on a centuries-old revenge. In Dionea, a mysterious little girl cast ashore is taken in by Catholic nuns, but her pagan ways prevent her from adjusting. The longest story, Oke of Okehurst, concerns a woman whose obsession for family history brings about a tragedy. In the final story, A Wicked Voice, a musician scoffs at an show more 18th century singer who may have made a deal with the Devil to receive his talent, and starts hearing his voice wherever he goes.
The role of women and the danger of the past are recurrent motifs in these stories: in Amour Dure, we read the life story of one Medea da Carpi, a schemer who tried to kill her way to power and sacrificed her lovers one by one to get it. In The Wicked Voice the protagonist takes us to the music of the 18th century; apart from the unusual idea of haunting someone through a ghost voice, this story seemed the weakest one to me.
In Dionea, the most mysterious story in the collection, a little girl, who may or may not be Venus, comes up from the sea (like in Botticelli’s painting) and declares that one day will “get back to the sea”, and infects everyone with mad love. This story reminded me a bit of Machen’s The Great God Pan, in that the modern world comes in contact with old pagan myths and forces.
My favorite, Oke of Okehurst: or the Phantom Lover, belongs in the tradition of psychological ghost stories like The Turn of the Screw. William Oke keeps seeing his wife, Alice, with a lover, although no one else can see him. Alice may be possessed by the spirit of an ancient relative, also named Alice, who had an affair with a poet before he died in mysterious circumstances. On the other hand Alice may just love her family’s history and maybe she dresses up like her ancestor just to annoy William. In this story reality isn’t as importance as its perception, and how It affects peoples’ actions.
I’d had never read Vernon Lee (pseudonym of Violet Paget) before, and her style impressed me for its clarity, ability to blur the line between reality and fantasy, and the sense of mystery her stories maintain until the end. Although her stories are couched in the Victorian/Edwardian tradition, I think she’ll be able to surprise anyone who gives her a try. show less
In the first story, Amour Dure, a historian researching Medieval Italy falls in love with the portrait of a Machiavellian woman and becomes the means to carry on a centuries-old revenge. In Dionea, a mysterious little girl cast ashore is taken in by Catholic nuns, but her pagan ways prevent her from adjusting. The longest story, Oke of Okehurst, concerns a woman whose obsession for family history brings about a tragedy. In the final story, A Wicked Voice, a musician scoffs at an show more 18th century singer who may have made a deal with the Devil to receive his talent, and starts hearing his voice wherever he goes.
The role of women and the danger of the past are recurrent motifs in these stories: in Amour Dure, we read the life story of one Medea da Carpi, a schemer who tried to kill her way to power and sacrificed her lovers one by one to get it. In The Wicked Voice the protagonist takes us to the music of the 18th century; apart from the unusual idea of haunting someone through a ghost voice, this story seemed the weakest one to me.
In Dionea, the most mysterious story in the collection, a little girl, who may or may not be Venus, comes up from the sea (like in Botticelli’s painting) and declares that one day will “get back to the sea”, and infects everyone with mad love. This story reminded me a bit of Machen’s The Great God Pan, in that the modern world comes in contact with old pagan myths and forces.
My favorite, Oke of Okehurst: or the Phantom Lover, belongs in the tradition of psychological ghost stories like The Turn of the Screw. William Oke keeps seeing his wife, Alice, with a lover, although no one else can see him. Alice may be possessed by the spirit of an ancient relative, also named Alice, who had an affair with a poet before he died in mysterious circumstances. On the other hand Alice may just love her family’s history and maybe she dresses up like her ancestor just to annoy William. In this story reality isn’t as importance as its perception, and how It affects peoples’ actions.
I’d had never read Vernon Lee (pseudonym of Violet Paget) before, and her style impressed me for its clarity, ability to blur the line between reality and fantasy, and the sense of mystery her stories maintain until the end. Although her stories are couched in the Victorian/Edwardian tradition, I think she’ll be able to surprise anyone who gives her a try. show less
Hauntings very much matches my experience of most late 19th century literary horror: wordy and uncanny. Read it if you like beautiful descriptions, long history lectures, and men obsessed with phantasms fatales.
Received via NetGalley.
Received via NetGalley.
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Author Information
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Vernon Lee was born Violet Paget in 1856. Although best remembered for the bewitching ghost stories she wrote between 1881 and 1913, she was also a fervent pacifist who wrote extensively and innovatively on the art of writing and the morality of art itself. She died in 1935
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1890
- Disambiguation notice
- Collects "Amour Dure," "Dionea," "Oke of Okehurst" (aka "Phantom Lover"), and "A Wicked Voice"
Confusingly, there are three different books by Vernon Less entitled "Hauntings" -- these have different, though partially ... (show all)overlapping, contents, and should not be combined.
1, Hauntings: The Supernatural Stories. This 400 page book published by Ashtree Press and edited by David Rowlands is an anthology drawn from a number of Lee's books -- indeed, some printings of it are subtitled "The Complete Supernatural Stories."
2. Hauntings and Other Fantastic Tales. This 351 page book, published by Broeadview Press and editied by Catherine Maxwell and Patricia Pulham, is also a collection drawn from several of Les's books, with the addition of 70 or so pages of non-fiction "context" by Swinburne, Pater and others, including Lee herself. Confusingly, Googlebooks (and hence many listings on LT) appends the date "(1890)" to this volume even though it is not a straight reprint of the 1890 text of Hauntings.
3. Then there are the numerous reprints of the actual 1890 text of Hauntings, by Kessinger, Dodo, Wildside. and others. This contains only the stories Amour Dure, Dionea, Oke of Okehurst, and A Wicked Voice, with a brief preface by Lee.
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Statistics
- Members
- 88
- Popularity
- 362,116
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.00)
- Languages
- English, Polish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 30
- ASINs
- 5
