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For decades, precious little has been understood about the author, among Victorian literature's most singular voices, previously praised for her brilliance by Oscar Wilde.

But now, readers will get the chance to become more deeply acquainted with a author whose innovative work delved into the emancipation of women, Jewish identity, and queer love.

“It is uncommon nowadays for a coherent corpus of a 1800s author’s papers to emerge,” stated a senior archivist. “We were determined to act on this to make her archive available in the place where she attended university and where she returned to even in the final days of her life.”

A Pioneering Life

Levy was born in 1861 into a bourgeois Jewish family in London and entered Newnham College in 1879, establishing herself as the second Jewish female student among Cambridge’s pioneering group of female undergraduates.

She wrote three poetry collections, three novels – including Reuben Sachs and The Romance of a Shop – a wealth of essays and a series of articles for the Jewish Chronicle. When she died by suicide in 1889, at the age of 27, she was recognized by her peers as an remarkable ability, with Oscar Wilde penning her eulogy and praising the “honesty, candor, and sadness” of her work.

A Complex Identity

A noted academic working on a literary analysis about Levy said that she felt the documents would not only reshape academic study but also be of fascination 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 skilled and poignant writer, but she was also so complex. She embraced her Jewish roots, but she was also an atheist. She seemed to have good relationships with men, but she was a queer woman.”

The professor explained that Levy had built a community at Newnham and also in her subsequent life, especially through Violet Paget “who was extremely networked to a wide circle 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 deeply impressed by the story and called Levy a prodigious talent.”

An Enduring Impact

Experts contend Levy’s work speaks directly to modern discussions around women's rights, LGBTQ+ literature and Jewish identity and say she foreshadowed discourse that would come years after her death.

“She was ahead of her time, which was perhaps one of the reasons she struggled to find her place,” the scholar said. “She struggled with queer identity and how she belonged in a conventional world. Matrimony was not an option for her, but neither was having a career like a instructor, which she abandoned to become a full-time author.

“She has long been fascinating to people who research women of Jewish heritage and their history. And today, when we have in the aftermath of the worldwide health crisis so many the younger generation battling despair, nervousness, troubled psyches, even suicidal thoughts, understanding her might be of interest and solace to a broader audience too,” the scholar said.

The Last Months

The assemblage includes Levy’s 1889 appointment diary, in which increasingly sparse entries document the last months before her death from inhaling carbon monoxide. A last, poignant entry, written the day before she died, said: “Home by myself the entire day.” But the scholar said Levy in many ways had “a dynamic, fulfilling, stimulating existence” too.

“She could be witty at times, which can be seen in her writings. She did suffer from a triple burden of difficulties, including nerve pain. She was losing her hearing progressively, which causes withdrawal from society and isolation. And she also struggled with depression.

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