Esteemed by Oscar Wilde, England's 'greatest Jewess' may finally be getting her due

For book lovers, the news that Cambridge University has acquired a previously sealed personal archive of Amy Levy, a Victorian Jewish novelist and poet who won praise from literary notables of her era, is a cause for celebration.

Levy's 1888 novel Reuben Sachs is an exasperated, yet affectionate, look at English Jewish middle-class life. Levy, the daughter of a prosperous stockbroker, knew whereof she spoke. At the British Library in London, Levy rubbed elbows with Eleanor Marx, daughter of the author of Das Kapital.

In her own way, Levy, who died by suicide at the age of 27, was an anti-capit...