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Perhaps best remembered as Oscar Wilde’s (1854-1900)
friend and confidante, Ada Esther Leverson (née Beddington) is often overlooked
in literary studies of Aestheticism and Decadence. Leverson’s contributions to
periodicals such as
In 1881, at the age of nineteen, Ada married Ernest Leverson (1851-1921). Like Ada, Ernest was from a wealthy Jewish family; his father, George, was a second-generation diamond merchant, and Ernest too worked in London as an East India Merchant, perhaps trading diamonds and gemstones himself (“Ernest Leverson”). He was twelve years her senior, and Ada’s acceptance of his proposal was perhaps a hasty act of rebellion against her father who, for unknown reasons, did not approve of the marriage (Speedie 14). Ernest had a temper and was not a particularly good match for Ada’s jovial personality. Soon after the marriage, she was upset to learn that his alleged “ward,” a young girl being brought up in a French convent, was in fact his illegitimate daughter. Their marriage was unhappy, and Ernest’s fickle nature and gambling habit often left Ada at the periphery of her husband’s attentions. A son, George, was born in 1888 (he would tragically die four months later from meningitis), and in 1890 Leverson gave birth to a daughter, Violet. Violet married army soldier Guy Wyndham in 1923, and went on to write one of the few substantial biographical accounts we have of her mother.
Soon after their marriage, Ernest turned his affections to Ada’s sister Evelyn, causing a family rift that would last several years (Speedie 18). Ada, too, had extra-marital romantic attachments. In the early 1880s the Leversons visited Monte Carlo and Ernest spent much of the trip gambling in casinos. Reputedly, during this vacation, Ada fell in love with prolific writer William Cuffe, 4th Earl of Desart (1845-1898). There is also an air of intimacy in letters written throughout the 1890s between Ada and George Moore (1852-1933). In their correspondence they discuss writing and literature, but they also share more personal exchanges. In an undated letter Leverson writes: “I am not afraid of death but I am of scandal, of which I have a special horror.” Ada’s fear of scandal goes some way to explain why she did not divorce Ernest despite their mutual unhappiness. Later in life, around the time Leverson began publishing novels, she allegedly became romantically involved with her publisher, Grant Richards (1872-1948); Julie Speedie suggests that Leverson was “rather in love” with him (2). These romantic connections with writers, and subsequently her publisher, perhaps demonstrate that Leverson was drawn towards those with a literary mind-set, and there was much to gain from these artistic connections that Ernest was unable to provide.
Leverson found comfort and happiness in literary networks. She was extremely close friends with Ernest’s cousin Marguerite Thomas, and Ada and Ernest were frequent visitors at the Thomas household. Brandon Thomas, Marguerite’s husband, was a member of several clubs including the Savage, a “club for working men in literature and in art” (Watson 33). Following the Thomas’s marriage, Brandon often brought his friends home, where he hosted late night parties. Julie Speedie speculates that it was these gatherings that introduced Leverson to many of the key literary figures of the 1890s. Leverson’s friendships and interactions with contemporaries such as Mabel Beardsley (1871-1916), Max Beerbohm (1872-1956) and Robert Ross (1869-1918) would go on to influence her parodies, and literary figures such as these are reflected in Leverson’s fictional characters. Throughout the 1890s Leverson herself hosted lively gatherings that were close in nature to French salons, and she came to be very well acquainted with many key literary and artistic figures of the period.
By 1892 Ada was beginning to make a name for herself publishing satirical pieces
in magazines such as
Although Leverson’s criticism of the aesthete is quite vague in
In this excessive description of mundane
mayonnaise, Leverson mocks Wilde’s complex characterisation of
Leverson and Wilde first met at a party in 1892, and, as Violet Wyndham notes,
Ada was “ideally conditioned to respond to Wilde’s lightheartedness” (24). It is
perhaps her
Leverson is remembered for being a particularly dedicated and brave friend to Wilde during and after the scandalous Queensbury trials of 1895. When hotels, clubs, friends, and family refused to accommodate him in the periods between the infamous trials, the Leversons invited Wilde to stay with them. Ada and Ernest offered their servants a month’s wages if they wished to leave while he stayed with the household, but, as Leverson recalls in her memoir of Wilde, their servants seemed proud to wait on him and promised to keep his location a secret (Leverson 38). Later, the Leversons were among the first to greet him when he was released from prison in the early hours of a cold May morning in 1897 (Leverson 44). Around 1907 Leverson began her memoir of Wilde, including many of the letters she had received from him (although they appear to be heavily edited) along with reminiscences and anecdotal stories. She worked on it for many years and it was eventually published in 1930, reviewers agreeing that her memoir was of much greater value than the miscellaneous letters included (Speedie 266).
In 1905 Ada and Ernest separated when he emigrated to Canada with his
illegitimate daughter. Soon after, Leverson began publishing novels. In 1907 she
published
Leverson’s novels received mixed responses when they were published. Some critics
disliked her tendency to depict her friends and acquaintances in her work. Some
reviewers also considered Leverson’s handling of narrative structure and plot to
be inadequate. Discussing Leverson’s
Later in life, Leverson began to lose her hearing. Ever afraid of shouting, she would talk quietly and softly, so much so that friends would struggle to catch what she said. Osbert Sitwell (1892-1969) described her naturally low voice as the “expression of a diffident and gentle disposition,” “the true vehicle of her personality” (131). Many accounts describe Leverson’s tendency to shake with silent laughter at the humour of miscommunication when she misheard what someone had said to her. From personal recollections of Leverson, we can tell that she was a delightful companion and she kept her friends very close to her heart. Around 1923 Leverson moved into the Washington Hotel on Curzon Street, making it her home while she was in London. She travelled frequently to Florence, where she would spend many months each year. In 1933 she fell ill while in Italy, and on her return to London she developed pneumonia. After a series of visits from her loved ones, Ada passed away on 30th August 1933 at the age of 70.
© 2021, Louise Wenman-James
Louise Wenman-James is a PhD student at the University of Surrey. Her doctoral
research is on the women of