No reason Aimée can't be right too.

From Vernon Lee's (nee Violet Paget's) introduction to her Supernatural Tales, some brief, very evocative memories of her childhood in mid 19th century Italy:

Those geniune feelings of those youthful days of mine I can sometimes almost recapture, catch the swish of them vanishing in the distance of years. I mean the ineffable sense of the picaresqueness and wonderfulness of everything one came across: the market-place with the stage coach of the dentist, the puppet show against the Gothic palace, the white owl whom my friend John and I wanted to buy and to take home to the hotel, the ices we ate in the mediaevel piazza, the skewered caramelles and the gardenias and the musky, canary gaggias hawked about for buttonholes; the vines festooned over corn and hemp, the crumbling villas among them, the peasants talking like W. W. Story's Roba di Roma..."Kennst du das Land?'...a land where the Past haunted on...a land where on full mooned terraces and in company with countesses - in those Roderick Hudson days a countess was herself an exotic - you might listen to not the intermezzo of Cavalleria but mysterious eighteenth century songs, might almost hear the voice (not wicked, oh no, ever so virtuous) of Farinelli himself.

The John she wanted to buy an owl with, incidentally, was her childhood friend John Sargeant.

Jilli, did you know there was LitGothic site with a listing on Vernon Lee?

And are you familiar with the work of Simon Raven (What a goth name!)

There's a gorgeously gothy cover for his novel The Roses of Picardie

Fascinating overview of Vernon Lee by Brian Stableford. Wow, she had a really interesting life.

Why must you make me spend money, Hec? You just made me break my Amazon moratorium less than an hour after declaring it.

Yes I have a problem.

(Also: Hi!)

Will I be the first one to say: KNUT!!!1!

Hi, Knut!

Hey Knut!

This is not how I would have imagined E. Nesbit (as described by a contemporary):

"Mrs. Bland — E. Nesbit — the popular author of "The Would-Be-Good," was always surrounded by adoring young men, dazzled by her vitality, amazing talent and the sheer magnificence of her appearance. She was a very tall woman, built on the grand scale, and on festive occasions wore a trailing gown of peacock blue satin with strings of beads and Indian bangles from wrist to elbow. Madame, as she was always called, smoked incessantly, and her long cigarette holder became an indissoluble part of the picture she suggested–a raffish Rossetti, with a long full throat, and dark luxuriant hair, smoothly parted. She was a wonderful woman, large hearted, amazingly unconventional, but with sudden strange reversions to ultra-respectable standards. Her children’s stories had an immense vogue, and she could write unconcernedly in the midst of a crowd, smoking like a chimney all the while."

Bless my stars, so it is. Wait. Who had the dirndl?

Also (re HP), she put a whole lot of emphasis on wordless spells this book, didn't she? Does anyone remember any instances of wordless spells in previous books? Also, was Dumbledore's freezing Harry without Draco knowing the only payoff? Or am I forgetting something? Or is the payoff likely to show up next book?

Knut! Babe... hey. And a matter not related to Knutliness, what exactly is "orange squash." Is it mass-produced orange soda, or is it that you make it yourself and it has little orange bits in it, like orangeade? (I read it in a book. Therefore it's a literary question. Because I said so.) Just trying to square the visuals. Ta ever so.

Emily, the wordless spells also helped Harry get the memory from Slughorn. He used the spell to keep refilling his mug in Hagrid's hut.