Grace Aguilar

Born in Hackney, London, in 1816, Grace Aguilar was an English novelist, poet, and writer on Jewish history and religion. She was educated at home and began writing young, drawing on her Sephardic Jewish background as well as her deep interest in faith, family, and women's lives.

Aguilar became one of the best-known Anglo-Jewish writers of the 19th century. Reference sources including Britannica, the Jewish Women's Archive, and Wikipedia describe her as a major voice in explaining Judaism to a broad readership and in writing popular fiction centered on domestic life and moral choice. Among the works most often associated with her are Home Influence, The Mother's Recompense, and The Spirit of Judaism.

Her life was brief: she died in Frankfurt in 1847, at just 31. Even so, her writing left a lasting mark, especially for readers interested in Victorian literature, women's writing, and Jewish thought in English.