Amy Levy’s Followers (36)

Amy Levy

Born

in Clapham, London, The United Kingdom

November 10, 1861

Died

September 10, 1889

Genre

Fiction, Poetry

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Levy was born in Clapham, London, the second daughter of Lewis Levy and Isobel Levin. Her Jewish family was mildly observant, but as an adult Levy no longer practised Judaism; she continued to identify with the Jews as a people.

She was educated at Brighton High School, Brighton, and studied at Newnham College, Cambridge; she was the first Jewish student at Newnham, when she arrived in 1879, but left after four terms.

Her circle of friends included Clementina Black, Dollie Radford, Eleanor Marx (daughter of Karl Marx), and Olive Schreiner. Levy wrote stories, essays, and poems for periodicals, some popular and others literary. Her writing career began early; her poem "Ida Grey" appearing in the journal the Pelican when she was only fourteen. Levy was born in Clapham, London, the second daughter of Lewis Levy and Isobel Levin. Her Jewish family was mildly observant, but as an adult Levy no longer practised Judaism; she continued to identify with the Jews as a people.

She was educated at Brighton High School, Brighton, and studied at Newnham College, Cambridge; she was the first Jewish student at Newnham, when she arrived in 1879, but left after four terms.

Her circle of friends included Clementina Black, Dollie Radford, Eleanor Marx (daughter of Karl Marx), and Olive Schreiner. Levy wrote stories, essays, and poems for periodicals, some popular and others literary. Her writing career began early; her poem "Ida Grey" appearing in the journal the Pelican when she was only fourteen. The stories "Cohen of Trinity" and "Wise in Their Generation," both published in Oscar Wilde's magazine "Women's World," are among her best. Her second novel Reuben Sachs (1888) was concerned with Jewish identity and mores in the England of her time (and was consequently controversial); Her first novel Romance of a Shop (1888) depicts four sisters who experience the pleasures and hardships of running a business in London during the 1880s. Other writings as well, including the daring Ballad of Religion and Marriage, reveal feminist concerns. Xantippe and Other Verses (1881) includes a poem in the voice of Socrates's wife; the volume A Minor Poet and Other Verse (1884) has dramatic monologues too, as well as lyric poems. In 1886, Levy began writing a series of essays on Jewish culture and literature for the Jewish Chronicle, including The Ghetto at Florence, The Jew in Fiction, Jewish Humour and Jewish Children. Her final book of poems, A London Plane-Tree (1889), contains lyrics that are among the first to show the influence of French symbolism.

Traveling in Europe, she met Vernon Lee in Florence in 1886, and it has been said that she fell in love with her. Vernon Lee (Violet Paget), the fiction writer and literary theorist, was six years older, and inspired the poem To Vernon Lee.

Despite many friends and an active literary life, Levy had suffered from episodes of major depression from an early age which, together with her growing deafness, led her to commit suicide on September 10, 1889, at the age of twenty-seven, by inhaling carbon monoxide. Oscar Wilde wrote an obituary for her in Women's World in which he praised her gifts.
-Wikipedia ...more

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Amy Levy’s books

Average rating: 3.53 · 1,476 ratings · 234 reviews · 75 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Romance of a Shop 3.55 avg rating — 823 ratings — published 1888 — 66 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Reuben Sachs 3.39 avg rating — 480 ratings — published 1888 — 27 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A London Plane Tree And Other Verse 3.75 avg rating — 32 ratings — published 2008 — 56 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Miss Meredith 3.29 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 2015 — 35 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Xantippe and Other Verse 3.72 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 2012 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Complete Novels and Selected Writings of Amy Levy, 1861-1889 by Amy Levy, Melvyn New (Editor) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 15 ratings — published 1993 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Medea 3.93 avg rating — 15 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Minor Poet And Other Verse really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 14 ratings — published 1889 — 38 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Poetry Of Amy Levy: "A lover may be a shadowy creature, but husbands are made of flesh and blood." 3.50 avg rating — 4 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	In the Night I Dreamed of You - Poems of Love, Dreams, & Death 4.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Amy Levy (?)

“For good or evil, these waifs on the great stream of London life had drifted together; how long the current should continue thus to bear them side by side- how long, indeed, they should float on the surface of the stream at all, was a question with which for the time being, they did not very much trouble themselves.”
― Amy Levy, The Romance of a Shop

2 likes

“Death, as a general statement, is so easy of utterance, of belief; it is only when we come face to face with it that we find the great mystery so cruelly hard to realise; for death, like love, is ever old and ever new.”
― Amy Levy, The Romance of a Shop

tags: death

1 likes

“A curious, dreamlike sensation stole over Gertrude at finding herself once again in a roomful of people; and as an old war-horse is said to become excited at the sound of battle, so she felt the social instincts rise strongly within her as the familiar, forgotten pageant of nods and becks and wreathed smiles burst anew upon her.”
― Amy Levy, The Romance of a Shop

tags: instinct, socializing

1 likes

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Amy Levy’s Followers (36)

Amy Levy

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Amy Levy’s books