caption death_date death_place religion birth_place nationality birth_date image article_title name
grace aguilar 16 september 1847 frankfurt jewish hackney , england english 2 june 1816 grace aguilar engraved portrait.jpg grace aguilar
 grace aguilar
grace aguilar

grace aguilar -lrb- 2 june 1816 -- 16 september 1847 -rrb- was an english novelist , poet and writer on jewish history and religion .
although she had been writing since childhood , much of her work was published posthumously .
among those are her best known works , the novels `` home influence '' and `` a mother 's recompense '' .
she was the eldest child of sephardic jewish refugees from portugal who settled in the london borough of hackney .
an early illness resulted in her being educated by her parents , especially her mother , who taught her the tenets of judaism .
later , her father taught the history of spanish and portuguese jews during his own bout with tuberculosis which had led the family to move to the english coast .
after surviving the measles at the age of 19 , she began to embark on a serious writing career , even though her physical health never completely recovered .
her debut was an anonymous collection of poems , `` the magic wreath of hidden flowers '' .
three years later she translated isaac orobio de castro 's `` israel defended '' into english at her father 's behest .
later her `` the spirit of judaism '' drew interest and sales in both britain and the united states after being published in philadelphia by isaac leeser .
he added a preface to the work elucidating his differences with her , the first of many clashes her work would have with mainstream jewish thought .
in the 1840s her novels began to attract regular readers , and she moved back to london with her parents .
despite her success , she and her mother still had to operate a boys ' hebrew school to stay solvent , which she resented for the time and energy it took from her writing .
in 1847 , she became ill again with a spinal paralysis which she did not let prevent her from visiting her brother in frankfurt .
her health worsened and she died there that september .
