New Humour, New Dialogue: Ada Leverson's Contributions to Punch and The Yellow Book

The 1890s was a turning point for women’s contributions to comic writing, exemplified in Punch’s most prolific female contributor, Ada Leverson. Her famous nickname The Sphinx was given to her by Oscar Wilde, and she is often interpreted primarily through the lens of this celebrity friendship. But her wider social networks and personal wit opened up an audience for her own comic sketches. ‘An Afternoon Party,’ published in Punch in July 1893, was followed by further contributions including a highly successful series of ‘Letters to a Debutante.’ Horrocks shows that the famous Punch brotherhood was increasingly infiltrated by an alternative sisterhood, as women authors secured new opportunities for their own comic voice, and this shifts our perspective on this established bastion of masculinity. Horrocks also examines terms such as ‘comedy,’ ‘humour,’ and ‘satire’ which are frequently used almost interchangeably. But the archaic origins of wit, a word often attached to Leverson, imply the possession of a certain degree of knowledge. This is an observational style of humour, suited to the ludic and playful role that Punch occupied with its readers. Further investigation into the journal’s female writers invites us to complicate the terms in which women could literally live by their wits in the 1890s.