Amy Levy

Amy Levy has risen to prominence in recent years as one of the most innovative and perplexing writers of her generation. Embraced by feminist scholars for her radical experimentation with queer poetic voice and her witty journalistic pieces on female independence, she remains controversial for her representations of London Jewry that draw unmistakably on contemporary antisemitic discourse.Amy Levy: Critical Essaysbrings together scholars working in the fields of Victorian cultural history, womenrs"s poetry and fiction, and the history of Anglo-Jewry. The essays trace the social, intellectual, and political contexts of Levyrs"s writing and its contemporary reception. Working from close analyses of Levyrs"s texts, the collection aims to rethink her engagement with Jewish identity, to consider her literary and political identifications, to assess her representations of modern consumer society and popular culture, and to place her life and work within late-Victorian cultural debate. This book is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students offering both a comprehensive literature review of scholarship-to-date and a range of new critical perspectives.

Naomi Hetherington teaches nineteenth- and twentiethcentury literature at Birkbeck College, University of London. Nadia Valman is a senior lecturer in English at Queen Mary, University of London.