The Virgin of the Seven Daggers: and Other Stories

I entered the church...It struck me suddenly that all this crowd of men and women standing all round, these priests chanting and moving about the altar, were dead...

Vernon Lee was a polymath whose copious writings include deeply learned studies of art, music, literature, and history, but also a small but exquisitely crafted group of Gothic tales, most of which first appeared in fin de siècle periodicals including the iconic Yellow Book. In these stories of obsession and possession, transgre...