Timeline

1849

Born in New York City on July 22

1866

Poems and Translations Written Between the Ages of Fourteen and Sixteen Begins correspondence with Ralph Waldo Emerson

1871

Admetus and Other Poems

1874

Alide: An Episode in Goethe’s Life (novel)

1876

The Spagnoletto (drama)

1877

Begins translations of medieval Hebrew poets from German to English

1881

Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine

1882

"An Epistle to the Hebrew" published serially in American Hebrew

Songs of a Semite

1883

Travels to Europe

"New Colossus" written for Bartholdi Pedestal Fund

Founds Society for the Improvement and Colonization of Eastern European Jews

1885

Father dies

Travels to Europe

1887

"By the Waters of Babylon", a prose poem published in Century

Returns from Europe in September, terminally ill

Dies November 19 in New York City

1888

The Poems of Emma Lazarus, two volume selection published posthumously by her sisters

1903

Bronze tablet of "New Colossus" is placed in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty