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For decades, very little has been understood about Amy Levy, among Victorian literature's most unique voices, who was once praised for her brilliance by the renowned wit.

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

“It is uncommon nowadays for a complete collection of a 1800s author’s papers to be discovered,” remarked a chief librarian. “We aimed to act on this to make her archive accessible in the place where she attended university and where she spent time even in the last months of her life.”

A Pioneering Life

Levy was born in 1861 into a Jewish middle-class family in London and began studies at Newnham College in 1879, establishing herself as the second Jewish woman among Cambridge’s initial cohort of women scholars.

She produced three books of verse, three novels – including Reuben Sachs and The Romance of a Shop – numerous essays and a collection of writings for the Jewish Chronicle. When she took her own life in 1889, at the age of 27, she was acknowledged by her contemporaries as an extraordinary gift, with the playwright composing a tribute and praising the “honesty, straightforwardness, and melancholy” of her work.

A Complex Identity

A leading scholar working on a literary analysis about Levy expressed that she felt the papers would not only reshape scholarly research but also be of fascination to a general readership.

“I encountered Amy’s poetry years ago and they have lingered in my mind ever since,” the scholar said. “Not only was she a fine and evocative writer, but she was also so complex. She affirmed her Jewish heritage, but she was also an non-believer. She seemed to get along very well with men, but she was a homosexual woman.”

The scholar added that Levy had established a circle of friends at Newnham and also in her subsequent life, notably through Violet Paget “who was highly sociable to everybody including Wilde. Levy entered Lee’s circle, in fact she fell in love with her, a love that sadly was never returned.

“When Wilde was given a short manuscript from Levy for his magazine the Woman’s World, he was bowled over by the story and called Levy a girl of genius.”

A Lasting Legacy

Researchers contend Levy’s work speaks directly to current debates around feminism, homosexual narratives and the Jewish plight and say she foreshadowed discourse that would come years after her death.

“She was forward-thinking, which was possibly one of the reasons she failed to secure her role,” the scholar said. “She faced challenges with queer identity and how she belonged in a conventional world. Marriage was not an option for her, but neither was having a career like a school teacher, which she gave up to become a writer full-time.

“She has long been interesting to people who examine women of Jewish heritage and their history. And today, when we have in the aftermath of the international epidemic so many the younger generation facing melancholy, nervousness, psychological distress, even suicidality, learning about her might be of benefit and consolation to a general population too,” the expert said.

The Closing Chapter

The assemblage includes Levy’s 1889 personal diary, in which increasingly sparse entries document the closing period before her death from inhaling carbon monoxide. 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 rich, full, exciting existence” too.

“She could be amusing at times, which can be seen in her writings. She did suffer from a set of three hardships, including nerve pain. She was becoming more and more hearing-impaired, which results in isolation from others and seclusion. And she also struggled with depression.

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