SOURCE: Introduction to The Complete Novels and Selected Writings of Amy Levy, 1861-1889, edited by Melvyn New, University Press of Florida, 1993, pp. 1-52.

In the following essay, New provides an overview of Levy's life and writings, maintaining that Levy is impressive for "the depth of her commitments, the versatility of her talents, the breadth of her learning."

Amy Levy was born in Clapham in 1861 and died by charcoal gas inhalation in 1889, two months before her twenty-eighth birthday. In taking her own life, she not only raised numerous questions about the despairs of an educated Jewish woman in late Victorian England but also put an end to a promising literary career. In her twenty-seven years she had been the first Jewish woman admitted to Newnham College, Cambridge; had published three short novels and three slim collections of poetry; and had become a contributor to several major literary magazines, including...