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

However, readers will get the chance to become more deeply acquainted with a author whose pioneering work delved into women’s independence, the Jewish experience, and queer love.

“Seldom nowadays for a complete collection of a Victorian-era author’s papers to be discovered,” stated a chief librarian. “Our goal was to seize this chance to make her archive available in the place where she attended university and where she visited even in the closing period of her life.”

A Pioneering Life

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 next Jewish woman among Cambridge’s initial cohort of female undergraduates.

She produced three poetry collections, three novels – including Reuben Sachs and The Romance of a Shop – many articles and a collection of writings for the Jewish Chronicle. When she ended her life in 1889, aged 27, she was recognized by her fellow writers as an remarkable ability, with Oscar Wilde composing a tribute and commending the “authenticity, straightforwardness, and sadness” of her work.

A Multifaceted Persona

A noted academic developing a biographical study about Levy expressed that she felt the papers would not only reshape academic study but also be of appeal to a general readership.

“I studied Amy’s poetry long ago and they have stayed with me ever since,” the scholar said. “Not only was she a fine and evocative writer, but she was also so complex. She affirmed her Jewish identity, but she was also an atheist. She seemed to interact positively with men, but she was a homosexual woman.”

The professor added that Levy had cultivated a community at Newnham and also in her later years, notably through Vernon Lee “who was extremely networked to many people including Wilde. Levy joined Lee’s circle, in fact she developed feelings for her, a love that unfortunately was never returned.

“When Wilde was given 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.”

A Timeless Influence

Scholars argue Levy’s work resonates strongly to contemporary conversations around gender equality, queer writing and Jewish identity and say she foreshadowed discourse that would come years after her death.

“She was progressive, which was perhaps one of the reasons she struggled to find her place,” the researcher said. “She faced challenges with queer identity and how she existed within a heteronormative society. Wedlock was not an option for her, but neither was having a profession like a educator, which she left behind to become a full-time author.

“She has long been of interest to people who study Jewish women and their history. And today, when we have in the aftermath of the international epidemic so many young people facing despair, worry, mental health issues, even suicidal thoughts, studying her life might be of value and comfort to a broader audience too,” the scholar said.

The Last Months

The assemblage includes Levy’s 1889 datebook, in which increasingly sparse entries record the final months before her death from asphyxiation. A last, poignant entry, written the day before she died, said: “Spent the day alone at home.” But the expert said Levy in many ways had “a vibrant, complete, thrilling existence” too.

“She could be witty at times, which shows in her writings. She did experience a triple burden of difficulties, including facial pain. She was losing her hearing progressively, which leads to social alienation and loneliness. And she also struggled with melancholia.

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