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Bidding Information
Lot #    17928
Auction End Date    4/24/2007 12:35:00 PM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Songs of a Semite
Title (Hebrew)    The dance to death, and other poems
Author    [First Ed.] Emma Lazarus
City    New York
Publisher    Office of The American Hebrew
Publication Date    1882
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    First edition. 8vo. [3], 80, [2 advertisements] pp. Good condition. Cloth. [3] pp. contain added title page: "The dance to death; a historical tragedy in five acts. "
          
Detailed
Description		    Contents: The dance to death : a tragedy in five acts -- Poems: The New Year. The crowing of the red cock. In Exile. In memoriam--Rev. J. J. Lyons. The valley of Baca. The banner of the Jew. Guardian of the red disk -- A translation of Heine and two imitations: Donna Clara. Don Pedrillo. Fra Pedro -- Translations from the Hebrew poets of mediaeval Spain: Solomon ben Judah Gabirol Night thoughts, Meditations, Hymn, To a detractor, A fragment, Stanzas, Wine and grief, Defiance, A degenerate age. Judah ben Ha-Levi Love song, Separation, Longing for Jerusalem, On the voyage to Jerusalem I, On the voyage to Jerusalem II, To the west wind II. Moses ben Esra Extracts from the Book of Tarshish or the Necklace of pearls, In the night, From the "Divan", Love song of Alcharisi. Emma Lazarus was a U. S. Poet, born into a New York Sepharic family. "Her essays in the Century Magazine (1882) in reply to anti-Semitic attacks praised her fellow Jews as pioneers of progress and expressed her joy in belonging to a people that was the victim of massacres rather than their perpetrator. Emma Lazarus' next important work, dedicated to the memory of George Eliot, was The Dance to Death, a verse tragedy about the burning of the Jews of Nordhausen in Thuringia during the Black Death. This appeared in Songs of a Semite (1882) , which also included other passionate Jewish poems such as "The New Ezekiel" and the Zionist "Banner of the Jew. " An Epistle to the Hebrews (1882-83) set forth her ideas and plans for the reinvigoration and deepening of Jewish life by a national and cultural revival in the twin centers of the United States and the Holy Land. The prose poems of By the Waters of Babylon (1887) were a further demonstration of her prophetic insight. Emma Lazarus, who corresponded with the eminent poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was the author of "The New Colossus," a sonnet expressing her belief in the United States as the haven of Europe's "huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Composed in 1883, this was engraved on a memorial plaque and affixed to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903. After her death, her sister prohibited the inclusion of 'anything Jewish' in the collected edition of Emma Lazarus' works that appeared in 1889." (Sol Liptzin, EJ). Probably the most important Jewish female poet of 19th Century America; here the first edition of her first published book.
          
Reference
Description		    Singerman 3081.
        
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Listing Classification
Period
19th Century:    Checked
  
Location
America-South America:    Checked
  
Subject
Other:    Women
  
Characteristic
First Editions:    Checked
Language:    English
  
Manuscript Type
  
Kind of Judaica