Eliza Davis (letter writer)

Eliza Davis (1817–1903) was a Jewish English woman who is remembered for her correspondence with the novelist Charles Dickens about his depiction of Jewish characters in his novels.

Davis was born in Jamaica. In 1835 she married her cousin[1] James Phineas Davis (1812–1886), a banker, who, in 1860, bought Tavistock House in London from Dickens.[2]

Dickens' novel Oliver Twist refers to one of its characters, Fagin, 274 times[3] in the first 38 chapters as "the Jew", while the ethnicity or religion of the other characters is rarely mentioned.[4] In 1854, The Jewish Chronicle asked why "Jews alone should be excluded from the 'sympathizing heart' of this great author and powerful friend of the oppressed."[5] Dickens (who had extensive knowledge of London street life and child exploitation) explained that he had made Fagin Jewish because "it unfortunately was true, of the time to which the story refers, that that class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew."[6] Dickens commented that by calling Fagin a Jew he had meant no imputation against the Jewish faith, saying in a letter, "I have no feeling towards the Jews but a friendly one. I always speak well of them, whether in public or private, and bear my testimony (as I ought to do) to their perfect good faith in such transactions as I have ever had with them."[7]

Eliza Davis, whose husband had purchased the lease on Dickens's home in 1860 when he had put it up for sale,[1] wrote to Dickens in 1863,[1] protesting at his portrayal of Fagin, arguing that he had "encouraged a vile prejudice against the despised Hebrew",[2][8] and that he had done a great wrong to the Jewish people.[9] While Dickens first reacted defensively upon receiving Davis's letter, he then halted the printing of Oliver Twist, and changed the text for the parts of the book that had not been set, which explains why after the first 38 chapters Fagin is barely called "the Jew" at all in the next 179 references to him.[4]

Death and legacy

Davis died in 1903 and is buried at Willesden Jewish Cemetery.[10] Her correspondence with Dickens was published in 1915.[11] Further correspondence by Davis, with the novelist and historian Walter Besant, the painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema, and Sir Henry Ponsonby, Private Secretary to Queen Victoria, is held in the University of Southampton archives.[12]

References
  1. Musgrove, Theresa (18 May 2022). "Was Dickens' guilt about Fagin a product of his Jewish family?". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
  2. Baumgarten, Murray (March 2015). ""The Other Woman" – Eliza Davis and Charles Dickens" (PDF). Dickens Quarterly. 32 (1): 45. doi:10.1353/dqt.2015.0008. S2CID 162101435. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  3. Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  4. Vallely, Paul (7 October 2005). "Dickens' greatest villain: The faces of Fagin". The Independent. Archived from the original on 5 December 2008. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  5. Baumgarten, Murray (March 2015). ""The Other Woman" – Eliza Davis and Charles Dickens" (PDF). Dickens Quarterly. 32 (1): 56. doi:10.1353/dqt.2015.0008. S2CID 162101435. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
  6. Howe, Irving (31 May 2005). "Oliver Twist – introduction". ISBN 9780553901566.
  7. Johnson, Edgar (1 January 1952). "4 – Intimations of Mortality". Charles Dickens His Tragedy And Triumph. Simon & Schuster. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  8. Bush, Lawrence (8 June 2017). "Charles Dickens and the Jews". Jewish Currents. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
  9. Hitchens, Christopher (5 January 2012). "Charles Dickens's Inner Child". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
  10. "A specially researched walk for International Women's Day". Willesden Jewish Cemetery. March 2020. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  11. Solomons, Israel (March 1915). "Charles Dickens and Eliza Davis" (PDF). Jewish Historical Society of England. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
  12. "Correspondence and papers, mainly of Mrs Eliza Davis". Jisc Archives Hub. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
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