Ada Leverson (1862–1933)
Auteur de The Little Ottleys
A propos de l'auteur
Séries
Œuvres de Ada Leverson
The Sphinx and Her Circle by Violet Wyndham 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
Femmes de Siècle: Stories from the 90s - Women Writing at the End of Two Centuries (1992) — Contributeur — 17 exemplaires
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Autres noms
- Beddington, Ada (birth name)
The Sphinx - Date de naissance
- 1862-10-10
- Date de décès
- 1933-08-30
- Sexe
- female
- Nationalité
- UK
- Lieu de naissance
- London, England, UK
- Lieu du décès
- Florence, Italy
- Lieux de résidence
- London, England, UK
Florence, Italy - Professions
- novelist
- Relations
- Hudson, Stephen (brother-in-law)
Wyndham, Francis (grandson)
Wyndham, Violet (daughter) - Courte biographie
- Ada Leverson, born Ada Esther Beddington, was the eldest of nine children. .Her mother was a pianist and friend of well-known musicians such as Paderewski and Puccini. In 1881, Ada married Ernest Leverson, a wealthy diamond merchant 12 years her senior, and the couple had two children. However, the marriage was unhappy and ended in separation; it also provided material for many of her novels. Ada began her literary career by contributing witty sketches, parodies, and stories to newspapers and magazines. After her husband's death in 1922, she sold her London house and spent part of each year in Florence.
Her wide circle of friends included the three Sitwell siblings, composer William Walton, Harold Acton, and other members of the British colony in Florence, as well as Somerset Maugham and T. S. Eliot. She remained a devoted friend of Oscar Wilde through his criminal trials, imprisonment, and exile; Wilde’s fond nickname for her was "The Sphinx." Ada would come to be considered the muse of the aesthetic movement of the 1890s, and her own works provide valuable insights into the English society of her day.
Membres
Critiques
The Little Ottleys (A Virago modern classic) par Ada Leverson
Started to read Love's Shadow but couldn't get interested
Ada Leverson was an author known for her wit and friendship with Oscar Wilde. He stayed with the Leversons when he went on trial for his homosexuality, as no hotel would accept him, and Ada was there to greet him when he was released from prison. Love's Shadow is her first novel, and the first in a trilogy known collectively as The Little Ottleys.
Edith Ottley is married to the pompous and boring Bruce. His self-absorption and self-importance make for some very funny scenes, with more than a touch of social parody. Edith's friend, Hyacinth, is in love with the handsome Cecil, who is infatuated with the older, widowed Eugenia. Hyacinth's guardian has more than a passing affection for his ward, as does her ladies companion, Anne. Filled with witty dialogue and tongue-in-cheek humor, this was a light, but not frivolous, romp. My favorite character was Anne, with her unrequited, unseen love for Hyacinth and her no nonsense manner.… (plus d'informations)
Edith Ottley is married to the pompous and boring Bruce. His self-absorption and self-importance make for some very funny scenes, with more than a touch of social parody. Edith's friend, Hyacinth, is in love with the handsome Cecil, who is infatuated with the older, widowed Eugenia. Hyacinth's guardian has more than a passing affection for his ward, as does her ladies companion, Anne. Filled with witty dialogue and tongue-in-cheek humor, this was a light, but not frivolous, romp. My favorite character was Anne, with her unrequited, unseen love for Hyacinth and her no nonsense manner.… (plus d'informations)
My hardcore fans (yes, both of you!) may remember that two years ago I was unable to review Birds of Paradise because I mislaid it and therefore couldn’t read it. (It turned up in the end, in a knapsack I never use.) I was eager to rectify my mistake by reading Ada Leverson’s 1916 offering, especially as this was her last novel.
Love at Second Sight is the last book in the Little Ottleys trilogy. Although I didn’t read the first two, it was easy to see what must have happened in them—in book one, the main character Edith must have married her husband, and then in the second one both Edith and her husband fall in love with other people but remain together thanks to Edith’s bloody-minded loyalty.
As this novel opens, Edith’s family has a guest in the house, and it’s unclear who she is, why she’s come to stay, and how long she plans to be there. But Madame Frabelle exercises a strange fascination over all of them. This book is terribly amusing and I’m not even going to tell you what happens, other than it’s a scream. The protagonist is thinking funny things about other people all the time but since she’s kind and fairly quiet, people don’t realize that she’s amusing and smart. The husband seems like the most annoying person on earth, and he must be drawn from life because how could you invent a person that annoying?
This is one of the rare books that has a contemporary setting during World War I. The husband was not called up because of a “neurotic heart,” which seems to be like PTSD. Edith’s love interest from the previous book returns home from the war, wounded. This novel’s realism allowed me to see all kinds of period details. For example, when the characters need to look up train timetables, they use things called the ABC and Bradshaw, which must be the apps they had on their phones at that time. Edith also had an Italian composer best friend who I thought might be based on Puccini since (according to Wikipedia) he and Ada Leverson were great pals.
I really was on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen, and guess what?Everyone gets a happy ending!
Ada Leverson’s Wikipedia page says cattily that after this novel, she worked on ever-smaller projects. Just like me!… (plus d'informations)
Love at Second Sight is the last book in the Little Ottleys trilogy. Although I didn’t read the first two, it was easy to see what must have happened in them—in book one, the main character Edith must have married her husband, and then in the second one both Edith and her husband fall in love with other people but remain together thanks to Edith’s bloody-minded loyalty.
As this novel opens, Edith’s family has a guest in the house, and it’s unclear who she is, why she’s come to stay, and how long she plans to be there. But Madame Frabelle exercises a strange fascination over all of them. This book is terribly amusing and I’m not even going to tell you what happens, other than it’s a scream. The protagonist is thinking funny things about other people all the time but since she’s kind and fairly quiet, people don’t realize that she’s amusing and smart. The husband seems like the most annoying person on earth, and he must be drawn from life because how could you invent a person that annoying?
This is one of the rare books that has a contemporary setting during World War I. The husband was not called up because of a “neurotic heart,” which seems to be like PTSD. Edith’s love interest from the previous book returns home from the war, wounded. This novel’s realism allowed me to see all kinds of period details. For example, when the characters need to look up train timetables, they use things called the ABC and Bradshaw, which must be the apps they had on their phones at that time. Edith also had an Italian composer best friend who I thought might be based on Puccini since (according to Wikipedia) he and Ada Leverson were great pals.
I really was on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen, and guess what?
Ada Leverson’s Wikipedia page says cattily that after this novel, she worked on ever-smaller projects. Just like me!… (plus d'informations)
114/2020. I read this because of the author's social connection with Oscar Wilde. The novel mostly consists of the tediously trivial conversations bored rich people use to fill their time until they die. Anyone who has better things to do doesn't need to read this. It's not an especially bad novel, but wholly vacuous.
Quotes
Quite: 'Think of the tedium of always bothering about perfect strangers — pretending to care about their luck and their love affairs, their fortunes and their failures, and all their silly little private affairs.'
Especially if they talk like this: ' "But this life is so short. — Do you think it's worth it? — (Do have some mayonnaise.) — I mean the kind of thing one does — waiting, waiting — at last asking, for instance, to call on your day — only meeting in throngs — perhaps not getting a chance, for months, to tell — "
"I suppose life is rather long, isn't it?" '
Award for Best Paragraph: 'All historians and teachers alike were regarded as natural enemies from Pinnock to Plato. On the same principle, Savile would never eat Reading biscuits, because he feared that some form of condensed study was being insidiously introduced into the system. Boys had to be on their guard against any treachery of that kind.'… (plus d'informations)
Quotes
Quite: 'Think of the tedium of always bothering about perfect strangers — pretending to care about their luck and their love affairs, their fortunes and their failures, and all their silly little private affairs.'
Especially if they talk like this: ' "But this life is so short. — Do you think it's worth it? — (Do have some mayonnaise.) — I mean the kind of thing one does — waiting, waiting — at last asking, for instance, to call on your day — only meeting in throngs — perhaps not getting a chance, for months, to tell — "
"I suppose life is rather long, isn't it?" '
Award for Best Paragraph: 'All historians and teachers alike were regarded as natural enemies from Pinnock to Plato. On the same principle, Savile would never eat Reading biscuits, because he feared that some form of condensed study was being insidiously introduced into the system. Boys had to be on their guard against any treachery of that kind.'… (plus d'informations)
Listes
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Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 10
- Aussi par
- 5
- Membres
- 529
- Popularité
- #47,055
- Évaluation
- 3.6
- Critiques
- 30
- ISBN
- 103
- Langues
- 1
