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The Twelfth Hour

First published: 1907
Pages: 197

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About this book

Ada Leverson's first novel follows the three Crofton siblings through one long, warm Edwardian summer among London's fashionable rich. Felicity, married to the charming but perpetually absent Lord Chetwode, watches her husband vanish on ever-longer hunts for horses and antiques. Her younger sister Sylvia is caught between the wealthy Greek her father favours and Frank Woodville, the penniless secretary she actually loves, while their schoolboy brother Savile, home from Eton, nurses a hopeless passion for an opera singer and appoints himself the family's fixer. Leverson tells it all with the light, mischievous wit that made Oscar Wilde call her "The Sphinx." Anyone who enjoys drawing-room comedy and gentle social satire of the leisured classes will find this an elegant, quick-witted introduction to a neglected Edwardian voice.

About the author

Ada Leverson

Ada Leverson (1862–1933) was a British novelist and wit at the centre of London's literary set at the turn of the century. She is remembered as a close friend of Oscar Wilde, who nicknamed her "The Sphinx" and whom she received at her home on the morning of his release from prison.

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