Charles James Lever

Lever, Charles James 

Born Aug. 31, 1806, in Dublin; died June 1, 1872, in Trieste. Irish author. Son of an architect; doctor by profession.

Lever graduated from Trinity College in Dublin in 1827 and studied at the Universities of Göttingen and Louvain. His novel The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer appeared in 1837. The novels Charles O’Malley, the Irish Dragoon (1841) and Jack Hinton, Guardsman (1843) humorously depicted the life of the military and the Dublin aristocracy; Tom Burke of “Ours” (vols. 1–2, 1843–44) and The O’Donoghue: A Tale of Ireland 50 Years Ago (1845) gave realistic descriptions of Irish society. Lever’s novels Barrington (1862) and Luttrell of Arran (1865; Russian translation 1866), on the life of the peasants and the petite bourgeoisie, were rich in detail and contained elements of social criticism.

WORKS

The Novels, vols. 1–37. London, 1897–99.

REFERENCES

Fitzpatrick, W. J. The Life of Charles Lever, vols. 1–2. London, 1879.
Downey, E. Charles Lever: His Life in His Letters, vols. 1–2. [London] 1906.
Stevenson, L. Doctor Quicksilver, the Life of Charles Lever. London, 1939.

A. P. SARUKHANIAN