⸺ BARRINGTON. (N.Y.: Pratt). 0.50. [1862].
A novel of social and domestic life in the middle classes. Scene: a queer little inn, “the Fisherman’s Home,” on the banks of the Nore, Co. Kilkenny. Here the Barringtons live. Among the striking characters are the fire-eating Major M’Cormack; Dr. Dill, an excellent study of a country medical man, and his lively daughter, Polly. The interest largely turns on the disgrace and subsequent vindication of Barrington’s son, George. In this Lever portrays his own son and his career.
⸺ A DAY’S RIDE. Pp. 396. (N.Y.: Pratt). 1.50. [1863].
The whimsical adventures of Algernon Sydney Potts, only son of a Dublin apothecary. An extravaganza in the vein of Don Quixote, and quite unlike Lever’s other works. Potts’s experiences begin in Ireland, but most of them take place on the Continent.
⸺ THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD. Pp. 565. (N.Y.: Pratt). 0.50. [1863-65.]
Humorous adventures on the Continent of an Anglo-Irish family filled with preposterously false ideas about the manners and customs of the countries they visit. Told in a series of letters in which the chief personages are made the unconscious exponents of their own characters, follies, and foibles, each character being so contrived as to evoke in the most humorous form the peculiarities of all the others. There are many acute reflections on Irish life, especially in the letters of Kenny Dodd to his friend in Bruff (Co. Limerick). Kenny Dodd is a careful and thoughtful character-study. The Author considered Kate Dodd to be the true type of Irishwoman. Biddy Cobb, servant of the Dodds, is one of Lever’s most humorous women characters. Lever held that he had never written anything equal to “The Dodds.”
⸺ LUTTRELL OF ARRAN. (N.Y.: Pratt). 1.50. [1865].
Opens in Innishmore, Aran Islands, off the coast of Galway. Luttrell, a proud, morbid man of broken fortunes arrives there with his wife, the daughter of an Aran peasant. The latter dies, leaving an only son, Harry. Shortly afterwards Sir Gervais Vyner, a wealthy Englishman, calls at the island in his yacht, and renews acquaintance with Luttrell. Vyner then goes to Donegal, where he meets with and adopts a beautiful peasant girl. The interest turns largely on the success of Vyner’s experiment in making a fine lady out of the girl. She is one of Lever’s most charming heroines. After many vicissitudes she comes to Innishmore. Here she meets Harry, who had returned from an adventurous career at sea, and they are married. Tom O’Rorke, who keeps an inn in a wild part of Donegal, provides a good deal of the humour. His inveterate hatred of everything English, his wit and his audacity (not always commendable), mark him out for special mention. There is also an amusing American skipper.
⸺ TONY BUTLER. (N.Y.: Pratt). 1.50. [1865].
Scene: partly in North of Ireland, partly on the Continent. Tony gets a post in the diplomatic service, and has many adventures, strange, humorous, or stirring. Diplomatic life (Lever was a British Consul abroad for most of his days) is described with a cunning hand. Some of Tony’s experiences take place during the Garibaldian war. The most striking figure in the book is Major M’Caskey, the noisy, swaggering, impudent soldier of fortune. Skeff Damer, the young diplomat, is also interesting, and Dolly Stewart is a most pleasing study.