Violet Fane

Violet Fane is the literary pseudonym of Lady Mary Montgomerie Currie (née Lamb, 24 February 1843 – 13 October 1905). A poet, a writer, and later an ambassadress, who was active in the British literary scene from 1872 until her death in 1905, Fane was a literary celebrity associated with Aestheticism, Medievalism, whose verses were occasionally set to music by composers such as Paolo Tosti and Hermine Küchenmeister-Rudersdorf. As a well-known figure in London society, Fane's coterie included famous literary personas such as Robert Browning, Algernon Swinburne, A. W. Kinglake, Alfred Austin, James McNeil Whistler, Lillie Langtry, and Oscar Wilde, who praised the oracular bent of Fane's opinions on 'the relation of art to nature' by saying that she ‘live[d] between Parnassus and Piccadilly’. Biography Born as Mary Montgomerie Lamb prematurely on 24 February 1843 at Littlehampton, Sussex, Fane was the eldest daughter of Charles James Savile Montgomerie Lamb (1816–1856) and Anna Charlotte Grey (bap. 1824, d. 1880). As the heir of the baronetcy of Burville, Berkshire, and Beauport, Charlie Lamb was descended from two aristocratic families. Charlotte Grey, on the other hand, was the daughter of a draper and an alleged smuggler, and she was rumoured to have had gypsy forebears. Charlie and Charlotte eloped in secret, and got married first in Edinburgh, and then in London to validate the legitimacy of their marriage. When Fane was born a few years later, the couple sent their (then one-month-old) daughter to her paternal grandparents with a note that explained their secret marriage and asking for their forgiveness. As a token of their good intentions, Charlie and Charlotte presented the baby to Sir Charles and Lady Mary as their granddaughter. From then on, Fane lived with her grandparents in their ancestral home, Beauport Park. Her parents went abroad for a year-long honeymoon, and returned to join Fane and her grandparents in Beauport as devotees of the oriental life. Charlie, Charlotte and their orientalist acquaintances were the first ones to introduce Fane to the exotic customs of the East during her childhood. They encouraged her to wear Turkish dress and to go barefoot as both her parents did. They also dispensed with beds and summoned their daughter by clapping their hands. Fane had four siblings: Clara (b.1844), Archibald (b.1845), Flora (b. 1849) and Charles Anthony (b. 1857), three of whom survived to adulthood.