Leverson, Ada

English novelist.

From the description of Letters from Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell, ca. 1920-1935. (Washington State University). WorldCat record id: 29852975

Epithet: novelist, friend of Oscar Wilde

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000001083.0x00001e

Ada Leverson, 1859-1936, was an English novelist who belonged to London's world of wealth and fashion. Her six novels were published between 1907 and 1916; they belong to Edwardian era.

She married early, becoming Mrs. Ernest Leverson. She had a son who died when a small boy. Her one daughter, Violet, married Guy Windham and has written a biography of her mother, The Sphinx and Her Circle.

She was a friend of the artists and writers of her time from Oscar Wilde to the Sitwells. It was Wilde who gave her the nickname "Sphinx". This is the title of one of Oscar Wilde's poems, "The Sphinx", that Ada parodied. From then on Oscar always called her "Sphinx", and the name stuck.

In her later years, she spent time abroad, particularly in Italy, where she passed the time in the company of the Sitwells. By this time, she had grown distressingly deaf.

In 1935 while returning to London from Florence, she was struck down by illness. She died in 1936 at the age of 71.

From the guide to the Ada Leverson Letters from Sitwells, ca. 1920-1935, (Washington State University Libraries Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections)