Maria Polack

Maria Polack (31 January 1787 – 8 January 1849^[1]) was an English Jewish novelist and educator. Her father, Ephraim Polack,^[2] was a prominent member of the Great Synagogue of London,^[3] and her niece (or perhaps daughter), Elizabeth Polack, was the first Jewish woman melodramatist in England.^[4]

In 1830 Polack published by subscription the two-volume anti-romance Fiction without Romance, or The Locket Watch, which focuses on the importance of female education and respecting religious and class differences.^[5][6][7] The novel depicts a gentile family in Devonshire, a member of whom, Eliza Desbro, encounters a sympathetic Jewish family after discovering her status as a bastard.^[8][9] The one-hundred and twenty subscribers to Polack's book included John Braham (two copies), Mrs Nathan Rothschild (five copies), and members of the Goldsmid family (six copies).^[10] A second, non-subscriber edition was published two years after the first edition.^[11]