Emma Lazarus (1849 – 1887) was an American poet, translator, and activist best remembered for “The New Colossus.” Following is a sampling of poems by Emma Lazarus, a talented and dedicated woman who deserves to be rediscovered and read.
“The New Colossus,” her most famous poem, is the 1883 sonnet that contains the iconic “lines of world-wide welcome” inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Read More→
My Ántonia (1918) by American author Willa Cather (1873 – 1947), is considered one of her masterpieces in a body of stellar works. My Ántonia is the last book of her “prairie trilogy” of novels, preceded by O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark.
The novel takes place in 19th-century Nebraska and tells the stories of an orphan boy from Virginia, Jim Burden, and the eldest daughter in an immigrant family from Bohemia, Ántonia Shimerda, who were each brought to be pioneers. In the harsh prairie, Ántonia makes friends and improves the condition of the land.
The first year in the prairie leaves lifelong impressions in both children, a theme that’s explored throughout the novel. Cather was highly praised for My Ántonia, bringing the American West to life and making it fascinating to generations of readers.
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The Member of the Wedding (1946), Carson McCullers’ third novel (more accurately, it is a novella), followed the incredibly successful The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) and the far less successful Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941). The Member of the Wedding re-established McCullers, still in her twenties, as a literary force.
The story centers on a lonely twelve-year-old girl, Frankie Addams, who prefers to be known as F. Jasmine. Her mother has died, and her father, a jeweler, treats her with benign neglect.
The story takes place during a hot summer in a small Georgia town, finding Frankie consumed with worry that she doesn’t belong anywhere or with anyone. Read More→
Charlotte Brontë (1816 – 1855) outlived all five of her siblings, including her literary sisters, Emily and Anne. The grief at losing her sisters at ages thirty and twenty-nine, respectively, may have been easing with the happiness she found as the wife of Arthur Bell Nichols, and the widespread recognition of her talents as a writer.
Jane Eyre, Shirley, and Villette had all been published, and Charlotte was recognized as a major talent. Her books sold well, too. And though she was still known as “Currer Bell,” the male pseudonym she’d use to break into the publishing world, her true identity had been established. Read More→
The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir is a semi-autobiographical novel published in her native French in 1954, and in English translation in 1956. The same year it was published in France, it won the prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt.
When The Mandarins was published outside of France, de Beauvoir was best known (as she is still today, perhaps) for her 1949 nonfiction book, The Second Sex, a feminist classic.
The Mandarins encompasses many of de Beauvoir’s favored themes, including existentialism, feminism, political structures (including communism), and morality. Read More→
Little Women, the beloved 1868 novel by Louisa May Alcott (1832 – 1888), follows the lives of the four March sisters — Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. The 1994 film adaptation of Little Women centered on strong-willed, tomboyish Jo, who was as much of a standout character as in the novel.
With a screenplay by Robin Swicord, and directed by Gillian Armstrong (also the director of the wonderful 1979 film version of My Brilliant Career), this was the fifth feature film adaptation of Alcott’s classic Little Women.
It followed silent versions released in 1917 and 1918; director George Cukor’s 1933 film; and a 1949 adaptation by Mervyn LeRoy. The film was released nationwide on Christmas Day of 1994 by Columbia Pictures. It would be twenty-five years before another adaptation would appear in 2019, written and directed by Greta Gerwig.
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Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 – 1894) is one of the most enduring and beloved of Victorian romantic poets. Following is a selection of poems by Christina Rossetti from her vast body of work.
Born in London, Christina was youngest of four artistic and literary siblings, the best known of whom is the pre-Raphaelite poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Her long poem “Goblin Market“ is perhaps her most famous work. She was praised by her contemporaries, including Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and was considered by some as the natural successor to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Read More→
Though Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870 – 1942) wasn’t a literary figure, we also highlight pioneering female journalists here on Literary Ladies Guide, and she was a true trailblazer.
Though Jessie rarely contributed the texts to the news stories she took, she was a storyteller with her camera. As America’s first woman news photographer, she broke many barriers and encouraged other women to follow suit.
Jessie was the first woman to be hired as a staff photographer on a U.S. newspaper and the first American woman to get a byline as a photojournalist. She herself found nothing extraordinary about the pursuit, claiming that photography was a profession that could be mastered by any woman who “has good health, perseverance, and a nose for news.”
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