Ada Leverson

Born in London in 1862 as Ada Esther Beddington, she became a British writer and novelist whose work was closely associated with the literary world of the 1890s. She contributed to magazines including The Yellow Book and became known for clever, polished novels that gently satirized fashionable society.

She is still remembered in part for her loyal friendship with Oscar Wilde. During the difficult years after his trial, she was one of the friends who stood by him, and Wilde is said to have nicknamed her "the Sphinx" because of her calm wit and mysterious poise.

Ada Leverson died in 1933, but her writing continues to interest readers who enjoy fin-de-siècle literature, social comedy, and women writers whose humor can be both graceful and quietly cutting.