LEE, VERNON (pen-name of Violet Paget) (1856-1935), English essayist and novelist, was born in France of English parents on Oct. 14, 1856. She made her home in Italy, near Florence, and became one of the most sympathetic interpreters of the Italian scene, and of Italian art and letters. She was one of the most profound and imaginative essayists of her time, original in her judgments and her criticism; her books are witty and en tertaining, and at the same time learned. Her first book, Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy (188o), contained admirable studies of Goldoni and Metastasio, and later volumes of essays, notably Belcaro (I881) and Euphorion, Essays on the Renais sance (1884), fulfilled the high promise of the first. Vernon Lee wrote some novels and stories, among them being Miss Brown (3 vols., 1884), which disturbed the coteries at the time of its publication, and Pope Jacynth and other Fantastic Tales (19o5). The two volumes of essays, Gospels of Anarchy (19o8) and Vital Lies (1912), show her as an independent thinker on social and philosophic questions. Satan the Waster (192o), described as "a
philosophic war tragedy with notes and introduction," is a power ful indictment of war, and embodies her pacifist creed.