Amy Levy(1861-89) was born in London to a relatively wealthy Anglo-Jewish family. At the age of 15 she was sent to Brighton High School and later attended Cambridge University where she was the first Jewish student at Newnham College. She left Cambridge without taking her degree but became a prolific writer of poetry, essays and articles and in 1888 published her first novel The Romance of a Shop. It was followed by Reuben Sachs which had as its subject the Jewish community in London and in particular its different branches of Sephardi Jews (from Spain and Portugal via Amsterdam), well established since the 17th century, and the Ashkenazim (from Poland and Eastern Europe) who began arriving in large numbers in the 1880s and were looked upon as poor relations. In 1889, the year of Amy Levy’s tragic death by suicide at the young age of 27, she published her final work, Miss Meredith. It is a romantic novel set in the famous central Italian town of Pisa. Elsie Meredith is one of three unmarried daughters of a widowed mother living in straightened circumstances. Elsie receives an offer of an engagement as governess with an aristocratic Italian living in Pisa, central Italian town with its famous leaning tower. With much trepidation she sets out on an adventure which includes a both romance and an unexpected ending. Much of the novel is focussed on Elsie’s growing appreciation of the beauties of the ancient town while she struggles with her feelings for the eldest son of the family who is visiting from the United States.
