Abstract

Henry James broke off relations with Vernon Lee over "Lady Tal," a satire in which Lee depicted James as timid, self-absorbed, and hostile to women writers. Her attack was not entirely unprovoked, as James assumed, but rather a defense against his behavior and aesthetic values. The parallel between "The Aspern Papers" and "Lady Tal" asserts not only a debt to Lee's family for the germ of the story but also a rebuke to James's use of Constance Fenimore Woolson. Lee's rewriting of Miss Tita as an enterprising tyro who leaves the man of letters bereft challenges gender and literary hierarchies.

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