Like Carter in particular, Lee writes in a mode heavily influenced by decadents such as Aubrey Beardsley and William Beckford and yet concerned with ethical behaviour as well as personal fulfilment. Yet all her work shares a tone – Lee captured like few other modern writers a gothic, not to say goth, sensibility in which the relentless pursuit of personal autonomy and sensual fulfilment leads her characters to the brink of delirium, as well as to a fierce integrity that can co-habit with self-sacrificing empathy. In the course of her long career – she made her first sale, a young adult novel, The Dragon Hoard (1971), at 21 and wrote up to her death – she produced adult and young adult novels, science fiction, fantasy, horror, crime, spy fiction, erotica, a historical novel ( The Gods Are Thirsty, in 1996, about the French Revolution, one of her many obsessions), radio plays and two episodes of the television space opera Blake’s 7. One reason for this was that she was remarkably prolific – only genre publishing could have coped with putting the majority of her 90 novels and 200 short stories into print.

Unlike them, she was principally published and known as a voice firmly rooted in the science-fiction, fantasy and horror world. Along with Jane Gaskell and Angela Carter, Tanith Lee, who has died aged 67 of cancer, was one of the most influential revisionist and feminist voices in contemporary fantasy writing.

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