Description

Amy Judith Levy (1861-89) was a British essayist, poet and novelist who was the first Jewish woman to attend Cambridge University. She is remembered for her literary gifts and as a pioneering female student at Newnham College with strongly held feminist views, who went on to become what was termed a "New Woman," forming relationships with both men and women in the literary and politically activist circles of London during the 1880s. She was the second of seven children born into a Jewish family and continued to identify herself as Jewish in adulthood, writing for The Jewish Chronicle. Her family was supportive of women's education and encouraged her literary interests but although she took up her studies at Newnham in 1879, she left before her final year without taking her exams. Whilst travelling in Florence in 1886, Levy met Vernon Lee, a fiction writer and literary theorist six years her senior, and fell in love with her. Both women went on to explore the themes of sapphic love in their works. Her first novel The Romance of a Shop (1888) is regarded as an early "New Woman" work depicting the difficulties faced by four sisters running a business. Levy suffered from depression throughout her life and committed suicide shortly before her 28th birthday. This short novel was first published in 1889.