Maria Polack (31 January 1787 – 8 January 1849) was an English

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

ist and

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

. Her father, Ephraim Polack, was a prominent member of the

Great Synagogue of London The Great Synagogue of London was, for centuries, the centre of Ashkenazi synagogue and Jewish life in London. Built north of Aldgate in the 17th century, it was destroyed during World War II, in the Blitz. History The earliest Ashkenazi synago ...

, and her niece (or perhaps daughter),

Elizabeth Polack Elizabeth Polack was an English playwright of the 1830s, notable for being the first Jewish woman melodramatist in England.Weltman, p. 204. Life and works Few historical records survive which detail Elizabeth Polack's life. Although neithe ...

, was the first Jewish woman melodramatist in England. In 1830 Polack published by

subscription The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, and ...

the two-volume anti-romance ''Fiction without Romance, or The Locket Watch'', which focuses on the importance of

female education Female education is a catch-all term of a complex set of issues and debates surrounding education ( primary education, secondary education, tertiary education, and health education in particular) for girls and women. It is frequently called gir ...

and respecting religious and class differences. The novel depicts a

gentile Gentile () is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jew". Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, sometimes use the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is generally used as a synonym fo ...

family in

Devonshire Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

, a member of whom, Eliza Desbro, encounters a sympathetic Jewish family after discovering her status as a

bastard Bastard may refer to: Parentage * Illegitimate child, a child born to unmarried parents ** Bastard (law of England and Wales), illegitimacy in English law People People with the name * Bastard (surname), including a list of people with that na ...

. The one-hundred and twenty subscribers to Polack's book included

John Braham John Braham may refer to: *John Braham (MP) (1417), MP for Suffolk (UK Parliament constituency), Suffolk *John Braham (tenor) (1774–1856), English opera singer *John Joseph Braham, Sr. (1847–1919), Anglo-American composer and conductor *John Bra ...

(two copies), Mrs Nathan Rothschild (five copies), and members of the

Goldsmid family Goldsmid is the name of a family of Anglo-Jewish bankers who sprang from Aaron Goldsmid (died 1782), a Dutch merchant who settled in England around 1763. Two of his sons, Benjamin Goldsmid (c. 1753-1808) and Abraham Goldsmid (c. 1756-1810), beg ...

(six copies). A second, non-subscriber edition was published two years after the first edition.

Bibliography

* * Polack, Maria (1832) ''Fiction Without Romance; or The Locket-Watch''. London: A. K. Newman & Co.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Polack, Maria 19th-century English Jews Jewish English writers Jewish women writers People from Whitechapel Victorian novelists Victorian women writers Writers from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets 1787 births 1849 deaths