The Rebel Queen and Constructions of Jewish Identity in Late Victorian Britain

This essay examines The Rebel Queen, a novel written by Walter Besant and illustrated by Adolph Birkenruth for serialization in The Illustrated London News in 1893. The text and images tell the story of Francesca Elveda, a young woman who does not know that she is Jewish because her mother—estranged from the faith herself—keeps her identity from her. The turning point of the narrative is Francesca's realization that she is in fact Jewish. As her heritage is revealed to her, tensions arise between the visibility and invisibility, the stability and the instability, of Jewish identity. This paper argues that the complexity of The Rebel Queen rests in the way it relies on a racial worldview even as it contests antisemitism. Equally multi-faceted is the novel's representation of patriarchy: although the author is attracted to Jewish culture because he admires its preservation of male dominance, his female characters are more developed and more sympathetic than his male characters. While realist in style, the philosemitic dimension of The Rebel Queen imparts an undercurrent of Orientalism.