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For decades, very little has been known about Amy Levy, one of Victorian literature's most distinctive voices, who was once hailed as a genius by the renowned wit.

However, audiences will be able to learn more with a writer whose innovative work delved into the emancipation of women, Jewish identity, and queer love.

“It’s rare nowadays for a complete collection of a 19th-century author’s papers to come to light,” remarked a chief librarian. “Our goal was to seize this chance to make her archive accessible in the place where she studied and where she spent time even in the last months of her life.”

A Trailblazing Existence

The author was born in 1861 into a bourgeois Jewish family in London and entered Newnham College in 1879, rising to become the next Jewish woman among Cambridge’s pioneering group of women scholars.

She produced three volumes of poetry, three novels – such as Reuben Sachs and The Romance of a Shop – a wealth of essays and a collection of writings for the Jewish Chronicle. When she ended her life in 1889, just 27 years old, she was regarded by her peers as an remarkable ability, with the playwright writing her obituary and lauding the “honesty, directness, and sadness” of her work.

A Multifaceted Persona

A noted academic currently authoring a book project about Levy said that she believed the documents would not only reshape academic study but also be of interest to a general readership.

“I encountered Amy’s poetry long ago and they have lingered in my mind ever since,” the researcher said. “Not only was she a accomplished and moving writer, but she was also so multifaceted. She affirmed her Jewish roots, but she was also an agnostic. She seemed to have good relationships with men, but she was a homosexual woman.”

The expert explained that Levy had established a social network at Newnham and also in her subsequent life, particularly through the writer Vernon Lee “who was well connected to many people including Wilde. Levy entered Lee’s circle, in fact she developed feelings for 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 deeply impressed by the story and called Levy a girl of genius.”

An Enduring Impact

Experts believe Levy’s work resonates strongly to current debates around gender equality, homosexual narratives and the Jewish plight and say she anticipated debate that would come long after her death.

“She was forward-thinking, which was maybe one of the reasons she struggled to find her role,” the researcher said. “She struggled with her homosexuality and how she existed within a heteronormative society. Marriage was not an option for her, but neither was having a vocation 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 worldwide health crisis so many the younger generation facing melancholy, anxiety, psychological distress, even self-harm, studying her life might be of benefit and consolation to a wider public too,” the expert said.

The Closing Chapter

The archive includes Levy’s 1889 datebook, in which increasingly sparse entries trace 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 scholar said Levy in many ways had “a dynamic, fulfilling, stimulating existence” too.

“She could be amusing at times, which is evident in her writings. She did suffer from a triple burden of difficulties, including facial pain. She was losing her hearing progressively, which leads to social alienation and isolation. And she also battled despondency.

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