Home Scenes and Heart Studies (Illustrated Edition)

📓 Aguilar (1816-47) was an English novelist, poet and writer on Jewish history and religion. Although she began writing during her childhood much of her work was published posthumously. Born in Hackney to Sephardic Jewish refugees from Portugal, an early illness led to her being educated at home where her mother taught her the tenets of Judaism and her father later taught her the history of Spanish and Portuguese Jews. She started writing poetry and fiction after the family moved to Devon when she was 12 and at the age of 19, by which time they were living in Brighton, she decided to try to make a living from writing to help support her parents whose health was failing and her two younger brothers. Her first published work was a collection of poems and in 1838 she translated Isaac Orobio de Castro's 'Israel Defended' at her father's request. By 1840 the family had returned to London and she published a theological tract 'The Spirit of Judaism' in 1842. Her poems and stories began to appear in various journals but she was still obliged to help her mother run a boys' Hebrew school which took time away from her writing. In 1847 she was afflicted with spinal paralysis but went ahead with a planned trip to Europe during which she visited her brother in Frankfurt. Her health declined and she died there in September. 'Home Scenes and Heart Studies', a collection of 19 tales many of which are founded on Jewish episodes, was published posthumously in 1852 and is reprinted from the 13th edition of 1876 with 7 full-page illustrations and a facsimile of the title page.