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Lot 388
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Excessively Rare Emma Lazarus ALS Re: Music! "my poem about Beethoven" Several Years Before "New Colossus"
Excessively Rare Emma Lazarus ALS Re: Music! "my poem about Beethoven" Several Years Before "New Colossus"
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Description:

Excessively Rare Emma Lazarus ALS Re: Music! "my poem about Beethoven" Several Years Before "New Colossus"

A 1p autograph letter signed by celebrated Jewish American female poet Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), as "Emma Lazarus" near lower right. March 7, 1877. New York, New York. On a leaf of paper with an unusual all-over checkerboard watermark, the letter probably being a retained contemporaneous copy for her records. Expected wear including even toning and isolated edge darkening. A few tiny scattered chips and closed tears affecting the top and left edges mentioned just for accuracy, else near fine. 5" x 8." Provenance: Ex-Ben Bloomfield of University Place (NY, NY); since then in the same collection for over six decades. Accompanied by a former catalog description/manuscript dealer's file card; file wrapper; as well as a 1934 newspaper article about Lazarus.

Emma Lazarus letters are seldom seen on the market, in part due to the poet's premature death at age 38 in 1887, just four years after her stirring paean to American immigration, "The New Colossus," was published. In 1919, New York’s renowned Anderson Galleries noted, “The mss. of this author...are practically unobtainable. This is the first Emma Lazarus ms. essay ever offered at auction....” Charles Hamilton’s venerable 1961 classic book on autographs observed, “Not many autographs are so desirable as that of Emma Lazarus...Her autograph is extremely rare.” The few extant Lazarus autographs to reach the market mostly did so in the twentieth century, between 1910 and 1980. The most recent auction return of a Lazarus item was recorded in 2002 at R.M. Smythe, when an autograph transcript fair copy signed of her sonnet “The New Colossus" sold for $97,750 ($85,000 + 15% buyer’s premium).

Emma Lazarus wrote this letter to the "Editor of the 'Independent,'" probably either referring to Henry Chandler Bowen (1813-1896), magazine founder and editor of the "Independent" from 1870 until his death in 1896; or possibly directed to the attention to William Hayes Ward (1865-1916), another staff editor. Originally conceived of as a Congregationalist magazine endorsing abolitionism and women's suffrage among other causes, the "Independent" published literary, religious, and political pieces. Its contributors included Emma Lazarus, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Dickinson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Celia Thaxter, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Greenleaf Whittier, and other major British and American poets.

Lazarus wrote in full:

"To the Editor of the 'Independent.'

Dear Sir:

I shall be happy to have you publish the enclosed poems in your journal if you find them desirable. If you cannot make use of them, will you kindly return them to me? Are you not soon going to print my poem about Beethoven which you accepted from two to three months ago?

Believe me yours truly,

Emma Lazarus.

36 West 14th Street.
March 7th 1877."

Music played a very important part in Lazarus's brief life. Lazarus was known to listen to Beethoven and Bach for solace during periods of illness. She not only penned the aforementioned poem about Beethoven, but she also dedicated three sonnets to Frederic Chopin. Intriguing new evidence put forth by two leading Ivy League university scholars suggests that Lazarus even played the piano.

Lazarus's "poem about Beethoven" was probably the double sonnet "City Visions" first published in 1888. The poem illustrates how individuals can escape the limitations of their physical surroundings by "giv[ing] rein to Fancy." The two first lines of the poem mention John Milton and Ludwig van Beethoven: "As the blind Milton's memory of light / The deaf Beethoven's phantasy of tone..." The last lines of the poem pose the question, "Does he possess the actual, or do I, / Who paint on air more than his sense receives…?" The poem is a tribute to the power of imagination. Lazarus believed absolutely that the mind can transcend boundaries, including physical infirmities, like her own.

Emma Lazarus was very successful in her career as a "lady magazine-poet" and translator of French, German, and medieval Hebrew sources. Evidence suggests that "City Visions" might not have been published by the "Independent" during Lazarus's lifetime. It appeared in the posthumous collection, "The Poems of Emma Lazarus" (Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1888), on page 219. This poetry collection variously credits "The Century," "Lippincott’s Magazine," and "The Critic" for permission to reprint a long list of her poems, including "City Visions," but it does not refer to the "Independent." Lazarus had published her first work, "Poems and Translations," in 1867, as a teenager. Her work was also regularly published in the "Independent" and "Scribner's Monthly." Lazarus's most famous poem, "The New Colossus" (1883), was inspired by the Statue of Liberty.

This Emma Lazarus letter represents a major cornerstone for collecting in multiple fields including women's history, American literature, Judaica, and music.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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September 6, 2023 11:00 AM EDT
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Bid Increments
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$100 $299 $20
$300 $499 $25
$500 $999 $50
$1,000 $1,999 $100
$2,000 $2,999 $200
$3,000 $4,999 $250
$5,000 $9,999 $500
$10,000 $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 $49,999 $2,500
$50,000 + $5,000