Culture Ghost

“Vernon Lee” was the pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget (1856–1935). She is remembered today primarily for her supernatural fiction, much of it influenced by her lesbianism and feminism, as well as for her books and essays on aesthetics.

Her novella “A Culture-Ghost; or, Winthrop’s Adventure” was first published in the April, 1881 issue of Appletons’ Journal. It was left out of Hauntings, but it’s certainly a masterpiece of weird fiction, fully worthy of rediscovery today.