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Ada Trevanion

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Ada Trevanion
Born1829 Edit this on Wikidata
Died11 February 1882 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 52–53)
OccupationPoet, writer Edit this on Wikidata
Parent(s)
  • Henry Trevanion Edit this on Wikidata
  • Georgiana Leigh Edit this on Wikidata

Ada Trevanion (1829 – 11 February 1882) was a British poet and author.

Ada Trevanion was born in the summer of 1829, the youngest of three daughters of Henry Trevanion, a minor poet, and his third cousin Georgiana Leigh, the eldest daughter of Augusta Leigh. They married despite the objections of Georgiana's father, Col. George Leigh. Henry Trevanion later began a relationship with his wife's younger sister, Elizabeth Medora Leigh, a woman whose father was thought to be actually Lord Byron, Augusta Leigh's half brother. Though the Trevanions struggled for money their entire lives, Ada Trevanion eventually inherited £28,000 from the Byron estate.[1][2][3]

Trevanion frequently published poems in magazines and published a collection of verse, Poems (1858), which contained a number of romantic poems on the themes of doomed women, ghosts, and death. The book was poorly reviewed and attracted little notice.[4] One 20th century literary scholar found that the pages of the Bodleian Library's copy of the book were uncut, indicating that it had never been read.[5]

Trevanion's ghost story "A Ghost Story" was initially published in The Ladies’ Companion and Monthly Magazine in 1857 and in revised form in the National Magazine in 1858. The story is narrated by Ruth Irvine, a student at a girls' boarding school who develops a close relationship with one of her teachers, Miss Winter. While Winter is away from the school, an apparition of the teacher repeatedly appears to Ruth, who later learns that Winter has died. The 1858 version of the story has attracted scholarly attention by critics who have detected a lesbian subtext in the relationship between Irvine and Winter.[4][6][7]

Ada Trevanion died on 11 February 1882 in Brixton Hill, London.[8]

Bibliography

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  • Poems. London, 1858.[9]

References

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  1. ^ Turney, Catherine (1975). Byron's daughter : a biography of Elizabeth Medora Leigh. Internet Archive. Newton Abbot : Readers Union Group of Book Clubs. ISBN 978-0-684-12753-8.
  2. ^ Rowse, A. L. (Alfred Leslie) (1979). The Byrons and Trevanions. Internet Archive. New York : St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-11135-9.
  3. ^ Bakewell, Michael (2000). Augusta Leigh, Byron's half sister : a biography. Internet Archive. London : Pimlico. ISBN 978-0-7126-6560-5.
  4. ^ a b Ohri, Indu. "The Cultural Anxieties in Victorian Women's Ghost Stories, 1847-1920". libraetd.lib.virginia.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-19.
  5. ^ Jump, John D. (John Davies) (1975). Byron, a symposium. Internet Archive. New York : Barnes & Noble Books. ISBN 978-0-06-493436-7.
  6. ^ Salmonson, Jessica Amanda (1989). What did Miss Darrington see? : an anthology of feminist supernatural fiction. Internet Archive. New York : Feminist Press at the City University of New York : Distributed by the Talman Co. ISBN 978-1-55861-005-7.
  7. ^ Champion, H.J.E. (2018). "Ada Trevanion's "A Ghost Story": Queered Haunting and the "Mysterious Inmate" of Woodford House". Victorian Review. 44 (2): 174–177. ISSN 1923-3280.
  8. ^ The Academy 1882-02-25: Vol 21 Iss 512. Internet Archive. Open Court Publishing Co. 1882-02-25.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  9. ^ Allibone, Samuel Austin (1908). A critical dictionary of English literature and British and American authors, living and deceased, from the earliest accounts to the latter half of the nineteenth century. Containing over forty-six thousand articles (authors), with forty indexes of subjects. Robarts - University of Toronto. Philadelphia Lippincott.
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