When Charles Lever died (in 1872), his daughters were anxious that his biography should be written by Major Frank Dwyer, but Dwyer was unwilling to undertake the task, and Dr W. J. Fitzpatrick volunteered his services.

In 1896 I asked Mrs Nevill, the novelist’s eldest daughter, if she would be willing to furnish a new biography of her father. In replying to me, Mrs Nevill said that although she felt “most intensely the utter inefficiency of Mr Fitzpatrick’s ‘Life,’” she feared her health would not permit her to undertake a task so serious as the one I proposed, but she would willingly give me any help in her power either for a new biography or for a revised edition of the existing ‘Life.’

Mrs Nevill died, somewhat suddenly, in 1897, and, so far as I could ascertain, she left no material for a new or for a revised biography of her father. Shortly after her death I obtained from Mr Crafton Smith—a son-in-law of Charles Lever—a collection of letters written by the novelist. Amongst this collection was a series (addressed to Mr Alexander Spencer, a lifelong friend of the author of ‘Harry Lorrequer,’ residing in Dublin) covering, practically, the whole period of the novelist’s literary career. Other letters written by Lever to his friends also came into my hands; and last year Mr William Blackwood was good enough to place at my disposal Lever’s correspondence with the House of Blackwood during the years 1863-1872.

After due consideration, it seemed to me that a Life of Lever wrought out of his letters and other autobiographical material would present the man and the story-writer in a more intimate and pleasing light than the picture which is furnished by Dr Fitzpatrick. In the present work I have endeavoured to let Charles Lever speak for himself whenever it is possible to find authentic utterances. Incidentally many errors into which Dr Fitzpatrick had fallen are corrected, but I am not making any attempt to supersede his painstaking, voluminous, and interesting biography. Dr Fitzpatrick declares that his book “largely embraces the earlier period of Lever’s life”; the present work deals mainly with his literary life, and contains, especially in the second volume, fresh and illuminating material which was not disclosed to Lever’s previous biographer, and which affords an intimate view of the novelist as he saw himself and his work.

I am indebted to Mr Crafton Smith for the series of letters addressed to Alexander Spencer, and for other letters and documents; to Mr T. W. Spencer for his permission to use certain letters in his possession addressed to Dr Burbidge; to Mr James Holt for letters written by Charles Lever’s father; and to Mrs Blackwood Porter and Mr William Blackwood for the letters written to Mr John Blackwood. Also I have to thank Messrs T. and A. Constable for their permission to avail myself of the autobiographical prefaces which Lever wrote during the last year of his life.

EDMUND DOWNEY.

London, 1906.

CHARLES LEVER: HIS LIFE IN HIS LETTERS.