Vernon Lee and the Pater Circle

Abstract

When it appeared in June 1884, Vernon Lee’s Euphorion, the first of her studies of the Renaissance, was dedicated to Walter Pater.¹ Preceding Henry James and following Mary Robinson, Pater is one of a succession of luminaries to whom Vernon Lee strategically dedicated her books in the 1880s, thereby anchoring and authenticating herself in English letters.² Her relationship with Pater and his circle is integral to an understanding of how she took her place in the English literary scene of her day. The present chapter has two parts: first, a trajectory of the biographical and literary relationship between Lee and Pater, and their London-based, shared ‘set’. Located initially in Bloomsbury and then in Kensington at the Robinsons, it included her dedicatees Henry James and Mary Robinson while, with respect to the Lee-Pater nexus, its core comprised Walter Pater and his sisters Hester and Clara, the Humphry Wards, and Lee.³ The second part of this study scrutinizes a moment in the history of this triangle when, remarkably, Mary Ward, Lee and Walter Pater all published first novels within four months of one another in 1884–5.

Elle s’étendait à merveille avec Pater. Subtil et trenchant, son rare esprit avait de réelles affinitiés avec l’intelligence de votre célèbre voisin; ils étaient, l’un comme l’autre, spéculatifs, dialecticiens, et pourtant épris du monde visible, artistes jusqu’au bout des ongles. Ils étaient devenus de véritables amis.

(Duclaux 1925, 344–5)

[She understood Pater completely. Subtle and sharp, her rare spirit had a genuine affinity with the intelligence of our celebrated neighbour: they were like one another, speculators, dialecticians, and nevertheless in love with the visible world, and artists to their fingertips. They became veritable friends.

(Seiler 1987, 67)]