Revealing the Papers of a Trailblazing Author, the Queer Jewish-identifying Writer Celebrated as a ‘Girl of Genius’ by Oscar Wilde.
For more than a century, very little has been understood about Amy Levy, a member of Victorian literature's most singular voices, who was once praised for her brilliance by Oscar Wilde.
Today, readers will have the opportunity to become more deeply acquainted with a author whose groundbreaking work explored female autonomy, the Jewish experience, and homosexual longing.
“Seldom nowadays for a coherent corpus of a 1800s author’s papers to come to light,” remarked a lead archivist. “We aimed to act on this to make her archive open in the place where she attended university and where she visited even in the final days of her life.”
A Trailblazing Existence
Amy Levy entered the world in 1861 into a bourgeois Jewish family in London and enrolled at Newnham College in 1879, rising to become the next Jewish woman among Cambridge’s pioneering group of female undergraduates.
She authored three books of verse, 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 took her own life in 1889, just 27 years old, she was regarded by her peers as an remarkable ability, with Wilde composing a tribute and praising the “authenticity, straightforwardness, and sadness” of her work.
A Layered Character
A noted academic working on a biographical study about Levy said that she was convinced the archival materials would not only transform academic study but also be of appeal to a general readership.
“I studied Amy’s poetry years ago and they have stayed with me ever since,” the professor said. “Not only was she a accomplished and moving writer, but she was also so complicated. She affirmed her Jewish heritage, but she was also an non-believer. She seemed to interact positively with men, but she was a woman who loved women.”
The professor noted that Levy had built a circle of friends at Newnham and also in her adult life, particularly through Vernon Lee “who was highly sociable to a wide circle including Wilde. Levy became part of Lee’s circle, in fact she fell in love with her, a love that sadly 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 girl of genius.”
A Timeless Influence
Experts believe Levy’s work resonates strongly to current debates around women's rights, queer writing and Jewish culture and say she foreshadowed conversation that would come well after her death.
“She was ahead of her time, which was maybe one of the reasons she never entirely found her place,” the expert said. “She struggled with queer identity and how she fit into a conventional world. Matrimony was not an option for her, but neither was having a career like a school teacher, which she abandoned to become a full-time author.
“She has long been fascinating to people who study women of Jewish heritage and their history. And today, when we have in the wake of the worldwide health crisis so many youth facing despair, worry, psychological distress, even suicidality, studying her life might be of benefit and consolation to a general population too,” the professor said.
The Last Months
The archive includes Levy’s 1889 datebook, in which gradually dwindling entries document the last months before her death from asphyxiation. A ultimate, touching 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 suffer from a triple burden of difficulties, including neuralgia. She was growing increasingly deaf, which results in social alienation and loneliness. And she also struggled with depression.
“Though she never quite found happiness, it was always something she upheld: the freedom to experience bliss, even elated.”