# Maria Polack

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{{short description|English novelist and educator}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Maria Polack
| image            = 
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| native_name      = 
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| pseudonym        = 
| birth_name       = 
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|1787|01|31|df=y}}
| birth_place      = 
| death_date       = {{Death date and age|1849|01|08|1787|01|31|df=y}}
| death_place      = [Whitechapel](/source/Whitechapel)
| resting_place    = 
| occupation       = [Teacher of music](/source/Music_education) and [poetry](/source/poetry)
| language         = English
| alma_mater       = 
| genre            = [Fiction](/source/Fiction)
| subject          = 
| movement         = 
| notableworks     = ''Fiction without Romance'' (1830)
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}}

'''Maria Polack''' (31 January 1787&nbsp;– 8 January 1849<ref>{{cite news|title= Died|newspaper=The Jewish Chronicle|date=12 January 1849|page=116 }}</ref>) was an English [Jewish](/source/Jews) [novel](/source/novel)ist and [educator](/source/Education). Her father, Ephraim Polack,<ref>{{cite news|title= A Hundred and One Years Old|newspaper=The Jewish Chronicle|date=1 March 1901|page=19 }}</ref> was a prominent member of the [Great Synagogue of London](/source/Great_Synagogue_of_London),<ref name=picciotto>{{cite book|title=Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History|first=James|last=Picciotto|location=London|publisher=Trübner & Co.|date=1875|url=https://archive.org/details/sketchesofangloj00piccuoft|page=[https://archive.org/details/sketchesofangloj00piccuoft/page/232 232]|oclc=186884797}}</ref> and her niece (or perhaps daughter), [Elizabeth Polack](/source/Elizabeth_Polack), was the first Jewish woman [melodrama](/source/melodrama)tist in England.<ref name="hartleybatchelor">{{cite book|last=Weltman|first=Sharon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wRRwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA204|title="Women Playwrights and the London Stage," in The History of British Women's Writing, 1830–1880|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2018|isbn=978-1-137-58465-6|editor-last=Hartley|editor-first=Lucy|page=204}}</ref>

In 1830 Polack published by [subscription](/source/Subscription_business_model) the two-volume anti-romance ''Fiction without Romance, or The Locket Watch'', which focuses on the importance of [female education](/source/female_education) and respecting religious and class differences.<ref name=galchinsky1996>{{cite book | last=Galchinsky | first=Michael | title=The Origin of the Modern Jewish Woman Writer: Romance and Reform in Victorian England | publisher=Wayne State University Press | year=1996 | isbn=978-0-8143-2613-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BdWfQNTp-dwC&pg=PA100 | page=100}}</ref><ref name=kaufman2016>{{cite journal|first=Heidi|last=Kaufman|title=1800-1900: Inside and Outside the Nineteenth-Century East End|url=http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=heidi-kaufman-1800-1900-inside-and-outside-the-nineteenth-century-east-end|journal=BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History|date=2016|access-date=14 May 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title= Books published this day|newspaper=The Globe|date=14 May 1830|page=1 }}</ref> The novel depicts a [gentile](/source/gentile) family in [Devonshire](/source/Devonshire), a member of whom, Eliza Desbro, encounters a sympathetic Jewish family after discovering her status as a [bastard](/source/Illegitimate_child).<ref name=scrivener2011>{{cite book | last=Scrivener | first=Michael | title=Jewish Representation in British Literature 1780-1840: After Shylock | series=Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters| publisher=Palgrave Macmillan | location=New York| year=2011 | isbn=978-1-349-28741-3 | oclc=951509609| doi=10.1057/9780230120020| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JYnFAAAAQBAJ|page=133}}</ref><ref name=spector>{{cite book|first=Heidi|last=Kaufman|chapter=England's Jewish Renaissance: Maria Polack's ''Fiction Without Romance'' (1830) in Context | editor-last=Spector | editor-first=Sheila A.| title=Romanticism/Judaica: A Convergence of Cultures | publisher=Ashgate Publishing Company | location=Farnham, Surrey | year=2011 | isbn=978-0-7546-6880-0 | pages=69–84|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1317061292}}</ref> The one-hundred and twenty subscribers to Polack's book included [John Braham](/source/John_Braham_(tenor)) (two copies), [Mrs Nathan Rothschild](/source/Nathan_Mayer_Rothschild) (five copies), and members of the [Goldsmid family](/source/Goldsmid_family) (six copies).<ref name=conway>{{cite journal|first=David|last=Conway|title=John Braham—From ''Meshorrer'' to Tenor|journal=Jewish Historical Studies: Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England|volume=41|location=London|date=2007|publisher=[Jewish Historical Society of England](/source/Jewish_Historical_Society_of_England)|pages=37–61|jstor=29780093}}</ref> A second, non-subscriber edition was published two years after the first edition.<ref>{{cite news|title= Just Published|newspaper=Athenaeum and Literary Chronicle|date=21 April 1832|page=261}}</ref>

==Bibliography==
* {{cite book|first=Maria|last=Polack|title=Fiction Without Romance; or The Locket-Watch|location=London|publisher=Effingham Wilson|date=1830|url=https://archive.org/details/fictionwithoutro02polauoft/}} {{free access}}
* Polack, Maria (1832) ''Fiction Without Romance; or The Locket-Watch''. London: A. K. Newman & Co.<ref>{{cite news|title= Advertisements|newspaper=Athenaeum and Literary Chronicle|date=21 April 1832|page=262}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

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

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Maria Polack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Polack) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Polack?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.