Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Amy Levy: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text

The Romance of a Shop

Appendix A: Contemporary Reviews of The Romance of a Shop

Appendix B: Other Writing by Levy

Appendix C: Literary Contexts

Appendix D: The Woman Question

Appendix E: Victorian Photography

Appendix F: Map of Levy’s London from Bacon’s New Map of London (1885)

Select Bibliography

About the Author

Susan David Bernstein is a Professor of English, Jewish Studies, and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Confessional Subjects: Revelations of Gender and Power in Victorian Literature and Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 1997).

Reviews

“It is an unexpected pleasure to have Amy Levy’s fascinating 1888 novel, The Romance of a Shop, in a well-annotated modern edition. Levy, an Anglo-Jewish poet and novelist who was educated at Newnham College and frequented the London circles of Eleanor Marx and Olive Schreiner, has been the subject of increasing interest over the last ten years. Levy’s novel chronicles the romance of work and the trials of independent urban life for the ‘new woman’; Susan David Bernstein gives us a splendid edition, with appendices that include Levy’s essays and poems, reviews, and other invaluable contemporary materials.” — Deborah Nord, Princeton University