Lever wrote 30 novels and five volumes of short stories and essays. Although his works are now out of print, they can easily be found, in second-hand bookshops and through the inter-library-loan system. The following might be considered the best and most important:

Charles O'Malley: the Irish Dragoon (1841): the best of Lever's early works and a superb example of a fast-paced, humorous, adventure-bestrewn Victorian military novel. In its lack of disciplined structure the novel has been compared, by some eminent critics, with the tradition of oral story-telling in Ireland.

The Martins of Cro' Martin (1856): a gloomy survey of the tragic results of landlord irresponsibility and the consequent destruction of the traditional (and perhaps apocryphal) compact between landlord and tenant. It has been called Lever's Bleak House and is one of his most difficult and most rewarding works of fiction.

Lord Kilgobbin (1872): Lever's last and finest novel, it is also his most avowedly political in theme and treatment. The distillation of a lifetime's observation, analysis and commentary the novel inches despairingly towards an advocacy of Home Rule. It is also remarkable for the fact that its hero is a Fenian head-centre.

Other important works include:
St Patrick's Eve (1845), The O'Donoghue (1845), The Dodd Family Abroad (1854) and The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly (1868).

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