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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: Sydney Sybella Lever

Author: Sydney Sybella Lever (1849–1887)

Alternate Name(s): Crafton Smith (married name)

Biography: Sydney Sybella Lever was born in 1849 in Lucca, Italy, the youngest daughter of Irish novelist Charles Lever (1806–1872). In 1870 in Trieste, she married Edgar Crafton Smith, an English businessman living in Austria. The couple had no children. By 1881, Lever and her husband (now retired) lived in London where she published a collection of poems, Fireflies (1883), and a novel, Years Ago (1884), both under her maiden name. She died in 1887 in London. Her husband went on to marry novelist Adele Crafton Smith (née Stannard) in 1890.

Author Tags:

References: Edmund Downey, Charles Lever: His Life in his Letters (Blackwood, 1906); Loeber; London Daily News (26 February 1887); Sheffield Daily Telegraph (25 February 1870)

Fiction Titles:

  1. Years Ago: A Story.  1 vol.  London: Remington, 1884.