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For decades, very little has been known about Amy Levy, a member of Victorian literature's most singular voices, who was once hailed as a genius by the famous playwright.

However, the public will have the opportunity to become more deeply acquainted with a writer whose pioneering work examined female autonomy, the Jewish experience, and same-sex desire.

“Seldom nowadays for a complete collection of a 19th-century author’s papers to be discovered,” stated a senior archivist. “We aimed to take the opportunity to make her archive accessible in the place where she studied and where she visited even in the last months of her life.”

An Illustrious Life

The author was born in 1861 into a Jewish middle-class family in London and enrolled at Newnham College in 1879, becoming only the second Jewish female student among Cambridge’s initial cohort of female students.

She wrote three poetry collections, three novels – such as 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 exceptional talent, with the playwright composing a tribute and lauding the “sincerity, candor, and pensiveness” of her work.

A Complex Identity

A leading scholar working on a literary analysis about Levy commented that she felt the archival materials would not only revolutionize scholarly research but also be of interest to a broader audience.

“I studied Amy’s poetry long ago and they have stayed with me ever since,” the scholar said. “Not only was she a skilled and poignant writer, but she was also so complicated. She affirmed her Jewish identity, but she was also an agnostic. She seemed to get along very well with men, but she was a homosexual woman.”

The professor noted that Levy had established a circle of friends at Newnham and also in her later years, notably through Vernon Lee “who was highly sociable to many people including Wilde. Levy became part of Lee’s circle, in fact she became enamored with her, a love that unfortunately was never returned.

“When Wilde obtained a one-page manuscript from Levy for his magazine the Woman’s World, he was bowled over by the story and called Levy a prodigious talent.”

An Enduring Impact

Researchers contend Levy’s work resonates strongly to current debates around feminism, homosexual narratives and Jewish identity and say she predated conversation that would come well after her death.

“She was progressive, which was possibly one of the reasons she failed to secure her niche,” the scholar said. “She grappled with her same-sex attraction and how she fit into a conventional world. Marriage was not an option for her, but neither was having a vocation like a instructor, which she abandoned to become a full-time author.

“She has long been interesting to people who research Jewish women and their history. And today, when we have in the aftermath of the global pandemic so many the younger generation struggling with melancholy, anxiety, mental health issues, even self-harm, understanding her might be of value and comfort to a wider public too,” the scholar said.

The Final Year

The collection includes Levy’s 1889 datebook, in which ever more scant entries document the closing period before her death from inhaling carbon monoxide. A final, moving entry, written the day before she died, said: “Home by myself the entire day.” But the expert said Levy in many ways had “a dynamic, fulfilling, stimulating existence” too.

“She could be witty at times, which shows in her writings. She did suffer from a trifecta of challenges, including nerve pain. She was losing her hearing progressively, which leads to withdrawal from society and isolation. And she also battled depression.

“Though she never quite found happiness, it was always something she demanded: the right to be happy, even ecstatic.”