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

However, the public will be able to learn more with a literary figure whose groundbreaking work examined female autonomy, the Jewish experience, and same-sex desire.

“Seldom nowadays for a organized set of a 19th-century author’s papers to come to light,” noted a senior archivist. “We were determined to take the opportunity to make her archive available in the place where she attended university and where she returned to even in the last months of her life.”

A Trailblazing Existence

Levy was born in 1861 into a bourgeois Jewish family in London and enrolled at Newnham College in 1879, rising to become the second Jewish female student among Cambridge’s initial cohort of female undergraduates.

She produced three books of verse, three novels – featuring Reuben Sachs and The Romance of a Shop – many articles and a collection of writings for the Jewish Chronicle. When she took her own life in 1889, aged 27, she was regarded by her peers as an exceptional talent, with Oscar Wilde writing her obituary and praising the “honesty, candor, and pensiveness” of her work.

A Multifaceted Persona

A leading scholar working on a literary analysis about Levy commented that she felt the papers would not only reshape academic study but also be of appeal to a wider public.

“I read Amy’s poetry long ago and they have haunted me ever since,” the researcher said. “Not only was she a accomplished and moving writer, but she was also so multifaceted. She embraced her Jewish identity, but she was also an non-believer. She seemed to interact positively with men, but she was a woman who loved women.”

The scholar explained that Levy had cultivated a social network at Newnham and also in her later years, particularly through Vernon Lee “who was highly sociable to a wide circle including Wilde. Levy joined Lee’s circle, in fact she developed feelings for her, a love that regrettably was never returned.

“When Wilde obtained a brief piece 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

Scholars believe Levy’s work speaks directly to modern discussions around feminism, homosexual narratives and Jewish culture and say she anticipated conversation that would come long after her death.

“She was ahead of her time, which was possibly one of the reasons she failed to secure her niche,” the expert said. “She faced challenges with her homosexuality and how she fit into a heteronormative society. Wedlock was not an option for her, but neither was having a vocation like a instructor, which she abandoned to become a professional writer.

“She has long been fascinating to people who examine Jewish females and their history. And today, when we have in the wake of the worldwide health crisis so many young people battling depression, worry, troubled psyches, even suicidal thoughts, studying her life might be of value and comfort to a general population too,” the expert said.

The Last Months

The collection includes Levy’s 1889 personal diary, in which ever more scant entries document the closing period before her death from inhaling carbon monoxide. A last, poignant entry, written the day before she died, said: “Spent the day alone at home.” But the scholar said Levy in many ways had “a rich, full, exciting existence” too.

“She could be humorous at times, which can be seen in her writings. She did endure a triple burden of difficulties, including neuralgia. She was growing increasingly deaf, which results in social alienation and seclusion. And she also struggled with depression.

“Though she never quite found happiness, it was always something she upheld: the entitlement to joy, even ecstatic.”