Maria Polack
Maria Polack was an English Jewish novelist and educator. Her father, Ephraim Polack, was a prominent member of the Great Synagogue of London, and her niece, Elizabeth Polack, was the first Jewish woman melodramatist in England.
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. The novel depicts a gentile family in Devonshire, most notably Eliza Desbro, who encounters a sympathetic Jewish family after discovering her status as a bastard. The 120 subscribers of Polack's book included John Braham, Mrs Nathan Rothschild, and members of the Goldsmid family.
