Amy Levy

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Amy Judith Levy (10 November 1861 – 9 September 1889) was an English essayist, poet, and novelist. She was one of the first Jewish students at Cambridge University and at Newnham College, studying there after arriving in 1879 but leaving before her final year. Levy wrote about the situation of Jews in Europe and the challenges women faced seeking independence in a male-dominated society. She kept close ties with a circle of women writers and thinkers, some of whom were lesbians.

Levy was born in Clapham, London, to Lewis and Isobel Levy, the second of seven children in a Jewish family with relatively relaxed religious observance. She identified as Jewish and wrote for The Jewish Chronicle. She showed literary talent from an early age: at 13 she critiqued Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and at 14 her first poem was published.

Her education was supported by her family, and she attended Brighton and Hove High School before going to Newnham College, Cambridge. Her friends included Clementina Black, Ellen Wordsworth Darwin, Dollie Radford, Eleanor Marx, and Olive Schreiner. In 1886, during a trip to Florence, Levy met Vernon Lee (Violet Paget) and fell in love; their relationship inspired some of Levy’s writings.

Levy’s novels are early examples of the "New Woman" voice. The Romance of a Shop (1888) follows four sisters navigating business life in 1880s London. Reuben Sachs (1888) tackles Jewish life and character. She also wrote short stories and poems, and contributed essays on Jewish culture to The Jewish Chronicle, including The Ghetto at Florence and The Jew in Fiction. Her poetry collections include Xantippe and Other Verses (1881), A Minor Poet and Other Verse (1884), and A London Plane-Tree (1889), which show her evolving style and feminist themes.

Levy struggled with depression from a young age, which worsened with her deafness and distress over relationships. She died by suicide on 9 September 1889 at her parents’ home. Oscar Wilde wrote a compassionate obituary for her. She was the first Jewish woman cremated in England, and her ashes were buried at Balls Pond Road Cemetery in London.

Her work was later gathered in The Complete Novels and Selected Writings of Amy Levy: 1861–1889 (1993) by Melvyn New. In 2025, Cambridge University announced it had acquired and unsealed Levy’s personal archive, including letters, drafts, photographs, and diary entries, which had been held by a private corporation.