Because she wanted recognition for her work on aesthetics and politics, Vernon Lee sometimes complained of the popularity of her travel essays. Yet her seven collections of travel writing composed between 1897 and 1925 represent not only the excellence of Lee's writing but the transformation of the travel essay. Unlike the pseudoscientific journalism of Victorian travelers to foreign lands and the narrowly focused guides to art and architecture of Europe, Lee's essays helped make travel literature into an artistic genre. Like other literary artists of the late nineteenth century, Lee developed an impressionistic manner of description as a point of departure for self-reflection and intellectual inquiry. In addition, Lee offered an expatriate's and internationalist's perspective on Europe before World War I. Her descriptions of days spent exploring odd corners of mostly well-known towns in western Europe reflect her love of nature and her understanding of the bonds that underlie apparent...