For more than a century, not much has been documented about Amy Levy, a member of Victorian literature's most distinctive voices, formerly celebrated as a prodigy by the famous playwright.
However, audiences will get the chance to learn more with a author whose groundbreaking work examined female autonomy, Jewish identity, and same-sex desire.
“It’s rare nowadays for a coherent corpus of a 19th-century author’s papers to come to light,” noted a senior archivist. “We aimed to act on this to make her archive available in the place where she was educated and where she returned to even in the final days of her life.”
A Trailblazing Existence
Amy Levy entered the world in 1861 into a middle-class Jewish family in London and began studies at Newnham College in 1879, establishing herself as the second Jewish female student among Cambridge’s initial cohort of women scholars.
She produced three poetry collections, three novels – including Reuben Sachs and The Romance of a Shop – numerous essays and a series of articles for the Jewish Chronicle. When she died by suicide in 1889, aged 27, she was acknowledged by her fellow writers as an remarkable ability, with the playwright penning her eulogy and praising the “honesty, candor, and pensiveness” of her work.
A Layered Character
A noted academic working on a book project about Levy said that she was convinced the archival materials would not only revolutionize academic study but also be of interest to a broader audience.
“I read Amy’s poetry long ago and they have stayed with me ever since,” the researcher said. “Not only was she a skilled and poignant writer, but she was also so complex. She embraced her Jewish heritage, but she was also an non-believer. She seemed to interact positively with men, but she was a homosexual woman.”
The expert explained that Levy had established a circle of friends at Newnham and also in her later years, especially through Violet Paget “who was extremely networked to many people including Wilde. Levy joined Lee’s circle, in fact she fell in love with her, a love that unfortunately was never returned.
“When Wilde obtained a brief piece from Levy for his magazine the Woman’s World, he was bowled over by the story and called Levy a prodigious talent.”
A Timeless Influence
Researchers contend Levy’s work speaks directly to modern discussions around women's rights, homosexual narratives and the Jewish plight and say she foreshadowed conversation that would come years after her death.
“She was progressive, which was maybe one of the reasons she failed to secure her place,” the expert said. “She struggled with queer identity and how she fit into a traditional society. Marriage was not an option for her, but neither was having a profession like a educator, which she gave up to become a full-time author.
“She has long been fascinating to people who examine Jewish females and their history. And today, when we have in the wake of the worldwide health crisis so many young people struggling with melancholy, worry, mental health issues, even suicidal thoughts, learning about her might be of interest and solace to a general population too,” the professor said.
The Last Months
The assemblage includes Levy’s 1889 datebook, in which increasingly sparse entries document the final months before her death from asphyxiation. A last, poignant entry, written the day before she died, said: “Alone at home all day.” But the expert said Levy in many ways had “a dynamic, fulfilling, stimulating existence” too.
“She could be amusing at times, which shows in her writings. She did suffer from a trifecta of challenges, including facial pain. She was losing her hearing progressively, which causes isolation from others and isolation. And she also struggled with melancholia.
“Though she did not ultimately achieve happiness, it was always something she upheld: the freedom to experience bliss, even ecstatic.”
