Success

Emma Lazarus' second book, Admetus and Other Poems, was published in 1871 to excellent reviews. Illustrated London News found, "Miss Lazarus must be hailed by impartial literary criticism as a poet of rare original power."

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Her only novel, Alide: An Episode in Goethe’s Life, appeared three years later. An adaptation of the German writer's autobiography, this book was also highly praised. The famous Russian author Turgenev told Lazarus that, "An author who writes as you do...is not far from being himself a master."

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Throughout the 1870's, Lazarus published poetry in popular magazines, most extensively in Lippincott’s. By 1882, over 50 of her poems and translations had appeared in mainstream periodicals. In 1876, she also completed a drama, The Spagnoletto, which was praised by friends like Thomas W. Higginson, but privately published and never performed.

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In 1881, her translations of the German Jewish poet Heine garnered Lazarus' best reviews yet. The Critic called her Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine, "... a copy of an artist's work made by an artist's hand."

Notes

Next—"Literary Lions"