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).