Ada Leverson
Ada Leverson, born Ada Esther Beddington on October 10, 1862, in London, was a notable British author and social figure known for her connections to prominent literary personalities of her time. She defied her parents by marrying Ernest Leverson at a young age, facing significant challenges when he lost his fortune and abandoned the family. To support herself and her children, Leverson turned to writing, gaining recognition through her contributions to various magazines and a weekly column under the pseudonym Elaine.
Her London salon became a gathering place for influential writers, including Oscar Wilde, with whom she formed a close friendship. Leverson authored six novels between 1907 and 1916, characterized by their comedic exploration of wealth and marital issues, reflecting her own life experiences. After her last novel, she continued to contribute to literary discussions and was celebrated for her wit and insight. Leverson's legacy saw a revival in interest, particularly after her portrayal in films about Wilde and exhibitions highlighting her contributions to literary society. She passed away in 1933, leaving behind a rich literary and social heritage.
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Subject Terms
Ada Leverson
Author
- Born: October 10, 1862
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: August 30, 1933
- Place of death: England
Biography
Ada Leverson was born Ada Esther Beddington on October 10, 1862, in London, England. She was the first of seven children born to Samuel Beddington, a jewel broker, and Zillah Simon, an amateur pianist. Against her parents wishes, she married Ernest Leverson when she was nineteen and he was thirty-one.
In the first eleven years of marriage they had two children, George, who perished at eighteen months, and Violet, later the mother of writer Francis Wyndham. By 1902, Ernest Leverson had gambled away his fortune and fled to Canada, leaving his family in London. Ada Leverson, who had been publishing stories in magazines such as Black and White, Punch, and The Yellow Book, and writing a weekly column in Referee under the pseudonym Elaine, turned to writing and the literary world to earn a living as well as maintain her social life.
Between 1862 and 1933, Leverson’s London salon attracted the literati of the day, including Max Beerbohm, Aubrey Beardsley, Henry James, Oscar Wilde (whom it is said she met when he admired her 1894 poem “The Minx,” a parody of his poem “The Sphinx,” published the same year), V. S. Pritchett, and Osbert Sitwell. She developed deep friendships with many of the authors, and she sheltered Wilde in her home between his first and second trial. He gave her the nickname “The Sphinx” and called her “the wittiest woman in the world.” James complimented her as “The Gentle Reader.”
Between 1907 and 1916, Leverson published six novels at approximately one-year intervals. The novels draw on the world of wealth and privilege in which she grew up as well as her unhappy marriage. They are comedies of manners and marriage, where wit and satire are tempered with concern and insight. For example, in The Twelfth Hour a beautiful newly-wed develops a flirtation to try to make her wealthy husband jealous and thus more attentive to her. Similarly, in Love’s Shadow the protagonist begins a flirtation to instigate a response from her husband.
In 1919, Leverson met the Sitwell siblings, Edith, Osbert, and Sacheverell. After her final novel in 1916, she contributed reminiscences to Letters to the Sphinx from Oscar Wilde and Reminiscences of the Author in 1930. Three years later she died of pneumonia.
Noble Essences (1950), Osbert Sitwell’s final autobiographical volume, contained a forty-page chapter on Leverson, and the decade saw a resurgence of interest in Leverson’s work. Her third and her final novels were republished. In 1962, Love’s Shadow, along with Tenterhooks and Love at Second Sight, were reprinted as The Little Otleys triology because Leverson’s autobiographical couple, Edith and Bruce Ottley, appear in each book.
Leverson has been portrayed in almost every film biography of Wilde from The Man with the Green Carnation (1960) to Wilde (1998), and her work attracted renewed attention in the early years of the twenty-first century. In this period, Oscar and the Sphinx, a one-woman show in which Leverson is the only character on stage and Wilde speaks offstage, was produced. In 2005, Leverson’s London salon was included in The Power of Conversation: Jewish Women and Their Salons, 1780-1930, an exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York City.