Ada Leverson

-
AL has been best remembered for her association with Oscar Wilde . But her six novels have never disappeared from public view or critical appreciation, and today interest has also developed in her journalism: stories, essays, dialogues, parodies, and memoirs—which embody (as do her novels) a good deal of covert literary and cultural criticism. Her shorter writings buzz with intertextuality, analysing and parodying the literary, intellectual, and artistic fashions of the day. Her novels present an ironic, amused, but ultimately bleak view of domestic life among the urban leisured class. Men make marriage choices for gain rather than for feeling, and intelligent women opt, for reasons of convenience, to make the best of unsatisfactory marriages.
Black and white photograph of Ada Leverson, standing with her hands behind her back. She is wearing a dark dress with a high collar, long sleeves, a broad skirt, and a row of buttons up the front. Her hair is short and curly. Below her photograph are the words: "Elliot and Fry, 55 and 56, Baker St London. W", typed in all capitals.

Milestones

10 October 1862

Ada Beddington (later AL ) was born at 21 Hyde Park Square, London, the eldest daughter in a family of four boys and four girls.
Burkhart, Charles. Ada Leverson. Twayne.
17-19

By 20 June 1908

AL published her second novel, Love's Shadow, which introduces her most celebrated character, Edith Ottley.
Burkhart, Charles. Ada Leverson. Twayne.
153n2

10 February 1930

AL dated a note which prefaces Letters to the Sphinx from Oscar Wilde, published that year in a limited edition of 275 copies, with her reminiscences of Wilde .
Leverson, Ada, and Oscar Wilde. “Reminiscences of the Author”. Letters to the Sphinx from Oscar Wilde, Duckworth, pp. 19-49.
2, 9

30 August 1933

AL died in rooms at 8 Clarges Street, London, of pneumonia contracted in Florence.
Burkhart, Charles. Ada Leverson. Twayne.
31
Wyndham, Violet. The Sphinx and Her Circle: A Biographical Sketch of Ada Leverson 1862-1933. A. Deutsch.
101

Biography

Birth

10 October 1862

Ada Beddington (later AL ) was born at 21 Hyde Park Square, London, the eldest daughter in a family of four boys and four girls.
Burkhart, Charles. Ada Leverson. Twayne.
17-19

Please click on login button to check your access and/or enter your credentials. Alternatively if you don’t have access, please click on “Subscribe”.

Log inSubscribe