Shirat Rahel / Rachel's Poems
Tel Aviv: Davar, 1935. First Printing. Hardcover. 8vo, publisher's pale turquoise boards, very good, light wear and soil. Frontispiece portrait, 194 pp. Very uncommon first edition of the collected poems, with only 5 copies located by OCLC/Worldcat in libraries worldwide (2 in the US at UC-Berkeley and at Towson MD). The author (1890-1931), born in Saratov Russia, emigrated to Palestine at the age of 19, barely eking out a living doing odd jobs and tutoring. She was encouraged as an author by Zalman Shazar, the editor of the Davar Newspaper who eventually became Israel's third president, and published her first poem in the paper in 1920. Eventually, she began publishing the majority of her poems there on a weekly basis. She spent her last years battling terminal tuberculosis and eventually succumbed to it in 1931, in Tel Aviv. Rachel was the first Jewish woman poet in Palestine to receive recognition in a genre that was practiced solely by men. Anthologies of her poetry remain bestsellers to this day. Many of her poems were set to music, both during her lifetime and afterwards, and are widely sung by Israeli singers. Her poems are included in the mandatory curriculum in Israeli schools. A selection of her poetry was translated to English and published under the title Flowers of Perhaps: Selected Poems of Ra'hel, by the London publisher Menard. Text in HEBREW. Very good. Item #H25152
Price: $200.00