Alice stopford green and vernon lee: Salon culture and intellectual exchange

Abstract

Archival evidence of the connection between Alice Stopford Green (1847-1929) and Vernon Lee (1856-1935) is restricted to a handful of letters and a few scattered references in ancillary documents. Extant correspondence provides a glimpse into the conversation and concerns of these two important European intellectuals, demonstrating their nascent interest in questions of social justice. Using network theory as a lens, this essay traces the contours of this connection, initiated during a formative period for both in the fertile context of the salons and dining rooms of London in the 1880s. This connection demonstrates the importance of social networks for women writers, artists, intellectuals and activists during the fin de siècle. By exploring the limited archival remnants of this friendship, this study highlights the Irish and European dimensions of Victorian metropolitan culture. It was because of salon culture that women with strikingly different backgrounds and sensibilities could connect and explore ideas of mutual concern, with reverberations for their political positioning and activism in subsequent decades.