William Sharp
William Sharp
1885年～1905. A Scottish novelist, critic. In the former half of his career, he employed a female penname Fiona Macleod. In the latter half of it, he used the real name. The characteristics of his novels are classified into Celtic fantasy.
Sharp was a friend of literary people belonging to a circle centering Mary Robinson and among them were William Morris, Holman Hunt, Ford Madox Brown and others. Through the circle, Lee associated with Sharp.
Vernon Lee and William Sharp are similar in that Lee employed the male penname and Sharp the female penname.
In a letter of 1880, Lee expressed Sharp as "poor devil Sharp." （Complete Letters, Volume 1, P.272.）In a letter of 1881, she wrote: "Young Sharp, with his pink fleshy, or rather meaty face & his prominent eyes, his whole linendraper's sleekness & prettiness, is quite repulsive to me, as I think he is to Mary. He looks the incarnation of underbredness. I quite understand his poems now. In conversation very dull." (Complete Letters, Volume 1, P.293.) Mary Robinson thought of Sharp as "snob." Besides, Lee mentions Sharp's Earth's Voices(1884) in a letter.
On the other side, Sharp criticized Lee's novel Miss Brown in a letter written soon after the novel came out.
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