Ada Leverson
Ada Leverson (née Beddington; 10 October 1862 – 30 August 1933) was a British writer who is now known primarily for her work as a novelist.
She began writing during the 1890s, as a contributor to Black and White, Punch, and The Yellow Book. She was a loyal friend to Oscar Wilde, who called her Sphinx. She was a wit, and a friend of Max Beerbohm; her writing has been compared to Beerbohm's, and the stories of Saki.
She was also a friend of George Moore; Osbert Sitwell in Great Morning has an anecdote in which she tries, unsuccessfully, to get Moore to see the young William Walton. Of the Sitwells' circle – Sacheverell Sitwell dedicated a poetry collection to her, while she was hopelessly in love with Osbert – she lived out her old age in the Hotel Porta Rossa in Florence.
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Family [edit]
Her father was Samuel Henry Beddington, a wool merchant, and her mother was named Zillah. Leverson had eight younger siblings, one of whom died in infancy. The survivors were, in order of birth, Evelyn, George, Charles, Sybil, Frank, Arthur and Violet. Sybil (who later married David Seligman) had a brief affair and long friendship with Giacomo Puccini.[1] Violet (1874–1962) turned down a marriage proposal from the composer Arthur Sullivan and later married the author Sydney Schiff.[2]
Ada married Ernest Leverson (1852–1921), when she was 19, without her parents' consent. The marriage broke up when he moved to Canada in 1905. Her daughter and biographer, Violet Leverson, married Guy Percy Wyndham in 1923, his second marriage. Her grandson is the short story-writer and novelist Francis Wyndham. Ernest Leverson's cousins include actor Darrell Fancourt and, by marriage, actor-playwright Brandon Thomas.
Works [edit]
- The Twelfth Hour (1907) [1]
- Love's Shadow (1908)
- The Limit (1911)
- Tenterhooks (1912)
- Bird of Paradise (1914)
- Love at Second Sight (1916)
- Letters To The Sphinx From Oscar Wilde and Reminiscences of the Author (1930)
- Little Ottleys (Virago 1982) omnibus:
- Love's Shadow (1908),
- Tenterhooks
- Love at Second Sight (1916)
Biography [edit]
Julie Speedie, Wonderful Sphinx. The biography of Ada Leverson, London 1993
Portrayal in film [edit]
In the 1997 film Wilde she is played by Zoë Wanamaker.
References [edit]
- ^ Speedie, Julie. Wonderful Sphinx, Virago Press (1993); and Beddington, Frederick. "The Rest of the Family: a letter to Nicolas Bentley", Stellar Press (1963)
- ^ Whitworth, Michael H. "Schiff, Sydney Alfred (1868–1944)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, January 2008, accessed 26 October 2012.
- Violet Wyndham (1963) The Sphinx and her Circle: A biographical sketch of Ada Leverson 1862–1933
- Charles Burkhart (1973) Ada Leverson
- Julie Speedie (1993) Wonderful Sphinx: The Biography of Ada Leverson
External links [edit]
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