[2] She was the daughter of Jacob Levi, a prosperous jeweller,[2] tea dealer, and Commission Agent of Colvestone Crescent, Hackney.

Dorothy's mother was born Julia Raphael in Aldgate on 31 October 1856 (or possibly 1858) and married Jacob Levi in March 1877.

[6] She described remaining astride a galloping horse while it negotiated jumps in a steeplechase as easier than retaining a seat in a car being driven at speed.

[7] In 1902 she was employed as a secretary at the Napier & Son works in Vine Street, Lambeth,[8] where she was engaged initially on a temporary basis.

[14] Jean Williams, British sports historian, hypothesises it may also have been to initiate a similar strategy to that employed by Kodak to infer "even women" could manage it.

[3] Edge noticed Levitt, who was described by author Jean Francois Bouzanquet as a "beautiful secretary with long legs and eyes like pools",[8] working in the Napier office and promoted her to become his personal assistant, as she fulfilled almost all of his criteria for a suitable woman to attract extra publicity for the company.

[9][b] Later newspaper accounts paint a "romantic history"[7] for Levitt by reporting that when she was twenty her parents moved to the countryside and tried to arrange a marriage for her.

[12] The turn of the 20th-century saw a transition from the more austere Victorian era towards the dynamics of Edwardian times; transport methods were beginning to change yet there remained little opportunity for men to race motors so women driving was almost unheard of.

[17] Levitt had to be taught to drive and Leslie Callingham, a young salesman employed by Napiers, was instructed to undertake the task during his day off work.

[20][25] The heats were held on Friday 2 October and the finals on the Saturday when she covered the flying kilometre in a time of one minute forty-five seconds.

[25][26] At a time when purchasing cars was only within the reach of the aristocracy and the upper middle classes[27] and women were expected to remain at home tending to their husband's needs, British society was astonished a woman working in a secretarial capacity was competing in a sport commonly believed to be a male discipline.

[24][28][29] Typically, Edwardian women interested or involved in any mechanical disciplines were perceived to be masculine in outlook, temperament and style, who would also dress in utilitarian male type clothing.

[30] When du Gast competed in the Paris to Madrid 1903 road race, her face was almost entirely obscured by a mask and she wore a hat that featured ear flaps; her coat was leather and double breasted and she was assumed to be male until her voice revealed her gender.

[24][32] Both Levitt's book and newspaper column in The Graphic described her atypical lifestyle for the Edwardian era: an independent, privileged, "bachelor girl", living with friends in the West End of London and waited on by two servants.

[24][35] In November 1903, Levitt and her friend Hena Frankton claimed damages against a GPO van driver who had hit their car.

[37][38] The Times of 5 September 1904 reported:[39] In October she won two medals at the Southport Speed Trials (Blackpool) driving a 50 horse-power Napier (or 20 hp).

[41] In the book The car and British society: class, gender and motoring, 1896–1939, Sean O'Connell described Levitt as "arguably the best known of the early women drivers" in an age when male prejudices against women drivers were typified by a 1905 item in Autocar that opined the hope that "the controlling of motor cars will be wrested from the hands of ... these would be men".

"[6] In July 1903 (possibly the 12th), Levitt won the inaugural British International Harmsworth Trophy for motor-boats, defeating the French entry Trefle-A-Quatre.

Levitt set the world's first Water Speed Record when she achieved 19.3 mph (31.1 km/h) in a 40-foot (12 m) steel-hulled, 75-horsepower Napier speedboat fitted with a 3-blade propeller.

She was then commanded to the Royal yacht Albert & Victoria[45] by King Edward VII where he congratulated her on her pluck and skill, and they discussed, among other things, the performance of the boat and its potential for British government despatch work.

She drove an 8-horse-power De Dion-Bouton from London to Liverpool and back in two days, without the aid of a mechanic but accompanied by an official observer, her pet Pomeranian dog Dodo, plus a revolver.

[50][51] Her success and skills meant that she was offered a works drive in a French Mors in the inaugural RAC Tourist Trophy Race on the Isle of Man, but she was prohibited from accepting by Selwyn Edge, to protect the reputation of his Napier marque.

[49] She was unsuccessful in a challenge run against a White Motor Company steam car driven by Frederic A. Coleman of Camden, London.

I prefer it.In 1907, the newly opened Brooklands circuit would not accept her entry, even though she was vouchsafed by S. F. Edge, and it continued to reject women drivers until the following year.

[58] In 1909 Levitt attempted to qualify as a pilot at the Hubert Latham School of Aviation at Châlons Camp Mourmelon-le-Grand, between Châlons-en-Champagne and Rheims in France.

[59] She attended along with Marie Marvingt and Baroness Raymonde de Laroche, the only woman ever licensed in the difficult to fly Antoinette monoplane.

Levitt became a member of The Aero Club of the United Kingdom in January 1910, and was booked to give a talk at the Criterion Restaurant on Thursday, 3 March 1910 about her experiences learning to fly.

She tried to counter the clichés about mechanically ignorant females: I am constantly asked by some astonished people "Do you really understand all the horrid machinery of a motor, and could you mend it if it broke down? ...

[62]In 1912 she received a byline for a column in the Yorkshire Evening Post on Saturday 3 August 1912 entitled "Motoring for Ladies : Some Commonsense Hints to Amateurs.

"[63] Levitt's career reflected that of several of her contemporaries with a meteoric rise to prominence before abruptly vanishing from public engagements,[64] and her life after 1910 is undocumented.