Julia Constance Fletcher (alias George Fleming)

Julia Constance Fletcher (1853-1938, alias George Fleming) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Nursing friendships with the likes of Oscar Wilde, Henry James and Gertrude Stein, she was part of influential literary circles and innovative movements, such as aestheticism. Since then, however, she has been reduced to a footnote to those prominent writers. She was a subject for one of Stein’s ominous portraits; she wrote the novel that was first to fictionalise Wilde, and she found herself the unfortunate object of gossip when she got stuck in James’s bathtub. While these facts make for amusing anecdotes, Fletcher’s life and work deserve proper critical attention.