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For more than a century, precious little has been documented about this Victorian writer, among Victorian literature's most unique voices, who was once praised for her brilliance by the famous playwright.

Today, readers will get the chance to become more deeply acquainted with a literary figure whose groundbreaking work delved into female autonomy, the Jewish experience, and queer love.

“It is uncommon nowadays for a coherent corpus of a 19th-century author’s papers to emerge,” stated a lead archivist. “We aimed to take the opportunity to make her archive accessible in the place where she was educated and where she spent time even in the last months of her life.”

An Illustrious Life

Amy Levy entered the world in 1861 into a Jewish middle-class family in London and entered Newnham College in 1879, becoming only the second Jewish woman among Cambridge’s initial cohort of female undergraduates.

She produced three books of verse, three novels – including Reuben Sachs and The Romance of a Shop – a wealth of essays and a set of pieces for the Jewish Chronicle. When she died by suicide in 1889, aged 27, she was regarded by her peers as an remarkable ability, with the playwright composing a tribute and lauding the “authenticity, candor, and pensiveness” of her work.

A Multifaceted Persona

A leading scholar developing a book project about Levy said that she believed the archival materials would not only reshape scholarly research but also be of appeal to a general readership.

“I encountered Amy’s poetry long ago and they have stayed with me ever since,” the researcher said. “Not only was she a fine and evocative writer, but she was also so complicated. She asserted her Jewish roots, but she was also an agnostic. She seemed to get along very well with men, but she was a woman who loved women.”

The scholar explained that Levy had built a circle of friends at Newnham and also in her later years, notably through Vernon Lee “who was extremely networked to everybody including Wilde. Levy became part of Lee’s circle, in fact she developed feelings for her, a love that regrettably was never returned.

“When Wilde received a brief piece from Levy for his magazine the Woman’s World, he was bowled over by the story and called Levy a young woman of brilliance.”

An Enduring Impact

Experts contend Levy’s work speaks directly to contemporary conversations around gender equality, queer writing and Jewish culture and say she anticipated conversation that would come well after her death.

“She was progressive, which was perhaps one of the reasons she never entirely found her role,” the expert said. “She struggled with queer identity and how she fit into a conventional world. Wedlock was not an option for her, but neither was having a career like a school teacher, which she abandoned to become a professional writer.

“She has long been interesting to people who research Jewish women and their history. And today, when we have in the wake of the international epidemic so many the younger generation facing depression, nervousness, psychological distress, even suicidal thoughts, studying her life might be of benefit and consolation to a general population too,” the expert said.

The Final Year

The assemblage includes Levy’s 1889 appointment diary, in which increasingly sparse entries document the closing period before her death from inhaling carbon monoxide. A final, moving entry, written the day before she died, said: “Alone at home all day.” But the scholar said Levy in many ways had “a rich, full, exciting existence” too.

“She could be witty at times, which can be seen in her writings. She did suffer from a triple burden of difficulties, including facial pain. She was losing her hearing progressively, which results in withdrawal from society and isolation. And she also struggled with melancholia.

“Though she never quite found happiness, it was always something she demanded: the freedom to experience bliss, even ecstatic.”