Grace Aguilar (1816 - 1847), a novelist and writer on Jewish history and religion, was born at Hackney of Jewish parents of Spanish descent. She was delicate from childhood, and early showed great interest in history, especially Jewish. The death of her father threw her on her own resources. After a few dramas and poems she published in America in 1842 Spirit of Judaism, and in 1845 The Jewish Faith and The Women of Israel. She is, however, best known by her novels, of which the chief are Home Influence (1847) and A Mother's Recompense (1850). Her health gave way in 1847, and she died in that year at Frankfort.
Her other works include "Magic Wreath", and "Vale of Cedars".
External link
eTexts (http://www.gutenberg.net/catalog/world/authrec?fk_authors=4336) of Aguilar's works, at Project Gutenberg
Her love of nature was cultivated by these experiences; and at the age of twelve she devoted herself of her own accord to the study of natural science, augmenting a collection of shells begun by her at Hastings, when only four years old, and supplementing it by mineralogical and botanical collections.
GraceAguilar was educated mainly by her parents.
Of this work—addressed to a Jewess under the spell of Christian influence, to demonstrate to her the spirituality of Judaism—the larger part is devoted to immortality in the Old Testament.