The greatest American Jewish author of the nineteenth century, Emma Lazarus was a celebrated poet and humanitarian activist. This edition is a broad collection of her writings, including her essays, previously unpublished poems, her innovative late work, and, in its entirety, her most important book, Songs of a Semite (1882). Her best known poem, “The New Colossus” (the 1883 Statue of Liberty poem that made Lazarus a national icon), is also here, along with a selection of cultural documents that help contextualize her work in relation to contemporary debates about Jewish history, the Russian pogroms of the 1880s, the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, immigration, and antisemitism.

Comments:

“Gregory Eiselein has created an important historical-literary context for Emma Lazarus's writing; this edition will be invaluable in making her work accessible to twenty-first century readers.” - Diane Lichtenstein, Beloit College

“Eiselein's expertly edited and annotated volume is an invaluable contribution to the recovery of lost texts by women writers. With its well-researched notes, historical contextualization, and supplementary materials, this superb edition is certain to become the definitive edition of Lazarus's works. An impressive achievement!” - Denise D. Knight, State University of New York, Cortland

“This collection provides a rich introduction to this important and under-appreciated American author. It is necessary reading for any scholar of nineteenth-century American poetry, nineteenth-century American woman writers, or the history of Jewish-American writing.” - Marianne Noble, American University

Gregory Eiselein is a professor of English at Kansas State University. He is the author of Literature and Humanitarian Reform in the Civil War Era (1996) and the editor of Infelicia and Other Writings, by Adah Isaacs Menken (Broadview Press, 2002).

Academics please note that this is a title classified as having a restricted allocation of complimentary copies. While the availability of bound complimentary copies is restricted to desk copies only, electronic complimentary copies are readily available for those professors wishing to consider this title for possible course adoption. Should you choose to adopt the book after viewing an electronic copy we will be happy to provide a bound desk copy.

Table of Contents: [Back to Top]

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Emma Lazarus: A Brief Chronology

A Note on the Texts

from Poems and Translations

Long Island Sound

from Admetus and Other Poems

Phantasies

Moods

Translations from the French of François Coppée

Arabesque

The Cranes of Ibycus

Off Rough Point

Leda & the Swan

The South

Symphonic Studies

The Creation of Man

A Letter, from Judah Hallevi to His Friend Isaac

Chopin

Night-Piece

Destiny

The Taming of the Falcon

Raschi in Prague

Assurance

Echoes

from Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine

City Visions

Progress and Poverty

Laura's Death

Triumph of Love

Songs of a Semite: The Dance to Death, and Other Poems

An Epistle from Joshua Ibn Vives of Allorqui

The World's Justice

The Feast of Lights

Life and Art

The New Ezekiel

Consolation

The New Colossus

1492

Critic and Poet

The Choice

The Supreme Sacrifice

The Birth of Man

To R.W.E.

Bar Kochba

The Venus of the Louvre

Gifts

Admonition

By the Waters of Babylon

A Masque of Venice

Selected Essays

Appendix A: Biography

Appendix B: Selections from the Correspondence

Appendix C: Critical Response

Appendix D: Cultural Contexts

Select Bibliography