Editing Violet Hunt (section)

==Biography==
Hunt was born in [[Durham, England|Durham]]. Her father was the artist [[Alfred William Hunt]], her mother the novelist and translator [[Margaret Raine Hunt]].<ref>[https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hunt-violet-1866-1942  Encyclopedia.com website, ''Hunt, Violet (1866–1942)'']</ref> The family moved to London in 1865 and she was brought up in the [[Pre-Raphaelite]] group, knowing [[John Ruskin]] and [[William Morris]]. There is a story that [[Oscar Wilde]], a friend and correspondent, proposed to her in [[Dublin]] in 1879;<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Secor|first=Robert|date=1979|title=Aesthetes and Pre-Raphaelites: Oscar Wilde and the Sweetest Violet in England|journal=Texas Studies in Literature and Language|volume=21|issue=3|pages=396–412|jstor=40754580|issn=0040-4691}}</ref> the significance of this event requires her to have been old enough to become engaged, leading to change her birth date to 1862 (not 1866 as often given).

Hunt's writings encompassed short stories, novels, memoir, and biography. She was an active feminist, and her novels ''The Maiden's Progress'' and ''A Hard Woman'' were works of the [[New Woman]] genre, while her short story collection ''Tales of the Uneasy'' is an example of [[supernatural fiction]]. Her novel ''White Rose of Weary Leaf'' is regarded as her best work, while her biography of [[Elizabeth Siddal]] is considered unreliable, with animus against Siddal's husband, [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]]. She was active in writers' organisations, founding the [[Women Writers' Suffrage League]] in 1908 and participated in the founding of [[International PEN]] in 1921.<ref name="Belford">Barbara Belford, "Hunt, (Isabel) Violet", in ''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), vol. 28, p. 875.</ref>

Despite her considerable literary output, Hunt's reputation rests more with the [[Salon (gathering)|literary salons]] she held at her home, South Lodge, in [[Campden Hill]]. Among her guests were [[Rebecca West]], [[Ezra Pound]], [[Joseph Conrad]], [[Wyndham Lewis]], [[D. H. Lawrence]], and [[Henry James]]. She helped [[Ford Madox Ford|Ford Madox Hueffer]] (later known as Ford Madox Ford) establish ''[[The English Review]]'' in 1908. Many of these people were subsequently characterised in her novels, most notably ''Their Lives'' and ''Their Hearts''.<ref name="Belford" />

Though never married, Hunt carried on multiple relationships, mostly with older men. Among her lovers were [[W. Somerset Maugham|Somerset Maugham]] and [[H. G. Wells]], though her longest affair was with the married Hueffer, who lived with her from about 1910 to 1918 at her home South Lodge (a period including his eight-day 1911 imprisonment for refusal to pay his wife for the support of their two daughters).<ref>{{cite book |date=1926 |last=Hunt |first=Violet |title=I have this to say: the story of my flurried years |publisher=Boni and Liveright |location=New York, USA |page=300  }}</ref> She was fictionalised by him in two novels: as the scheming Florence Dowell in ''[[The Good Soldier]]'' and as the promiscuous Sylvia Tietjens in his tetralogy ''[[Parade's End]]''. She was also the inspiration for the character Rose Waterfield in Somerset Maugham's novel ''[[The Moon and Sixpence]]'' and Norah Nesbit in ''[[Of Human Bondage]]''.<ref name="Belford" /> She was the basis for Claire Temple, the central character of [[Norah Hoult|Norah Hoult's]] ''There Were No Windows'' (1944).<ref>[https://persephonebooks.co.uk/products/there-were-no-windows  Persephone Books website, ''There Were No Windows'']</ref>
[[File:Alfred William Hunt Grave.jpg|thumb|160px|right|Hunt's grave in [[Brookwood Cemetery]]]]
Hunt wrote two collections of supernatural stories, ''Tales of the Uneasy'' and ''More Tales of the Uneasy''.<ref>[[Mike Ashley (writer)|Mike Ashley]], "HUNT, (Isobel) Violet" In the ''St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost, and Gothic Writers'', edited by [[David Pringle]]. Detroit: St. James Press/Gale, 1998, {{ISBN|1558622063}} (p. 285-287).</ref> ''Tales of the Uneasy'' was described by [[E. F. Bleiler]] as containing "Excellent stories, in which the supernatural is used as a technical device to indicate ironies of fate and the intimate relationship of life and death."<ref>[[E. F. Bleiler]], ''The Guide to Supernatural Fiction''. Kent, Ohio : Kent State University Press, 1983.</ref> ''Tales of the Uneasy'' was listed by horror historian R. S. Hadji among "unjustly neglected" horror books.<ref>R.S. Hadji, "13 Neglected Masterpieces of the Macabre", in ''[[Twilight Zone literature|Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine]]'', July–August 1983. TZ Publications, Inc. (p. 62)</ref> 
 
Violet Hunt died of [[pneumonia]] in her home in 1942. Her grave and those of her parents is at [[Brookwood Cemetery]].