Poems.
Channing Presents His First Book To Emma Lazarus
On Her Visit To Concord To Meet Emerson
[Lazarus, Emma]. Channing, William Ellery. Poems. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1843.
12mo.; gilt tooling on paste-downs, with the name “Grabau” engraved on the bottom-edge of the front paste-down; t.e.g.; rebound in full turquoise morocco, stamped in gilt; spine lightly worn; a very pretty copy. In a taupe slipcase with dark green morocco labels.
Fist edition of Channing’s first book, and, as evident from the date of his presentation inscription, most likely one of his own copies, retained for over thirty years. A presentation copy, inscribed: Emma Lazarus/ from W.E. Channing/ Concord August 31, 1876. With two other inscriptions of distant associations: This volume, that came to me on the death of Josephine Lazarus, (sister of Emma), from her private library, I inscribe to my brother John F. Grabau, who cares. 1916. Grabau, the owner responsible for the full morocco binding, himself presented the book at Christmas 1943.
An association copy of profound significance. William Ellery Channing, poet, Concordian, acquaintance of Emerson, and confidant, traveling companion, and biographer of Thoreau, was first introduced to Lazarus in 1876, while she was a Emerson’s guest in Concord, Massachusetts. Emerson was very much a mentor to the young Lazarus who, prior to her Concord visit, had not spent even a single day away from her close-knit family. As a token of her immense admiration and gratitude, she dedicated her second book, Admentus (1871), to him.
Although Emerson’s presence in Lazarus’s life as a correspondent proved life-shaping, it was her week’s stay with him, which had led her briefly away from the parochial milieu of her prescribed life, that redefined her critical focus. While in Concord, Lazarus was acutely affected by the work of Thoreau and by his posthumous presence, which she felt suffused the surrounding woods and town. This affinity for the deceased Thoreau led her to a private scrutiny of Emerson’s legendary, and chilly, rationality, and to seek out Thoreau’s faithful disciple, William Ellery Channing.
Lazarus found Channing “reticent with strangers,” she wrote in her journal. However, “the bond of [their] sympathy was [her] admiration for Thoreau whose memory he actually worshipped, having been his constant companion in his best days, and his daily attention in the last years of illness and heroic suffering.” She was compelled both by Channing’s devotion to Thoreau and his candidness, which seemed to her a refreshing transition from Emerson’s reserve.
Upon Lazarus’s departure from Concord, Channing presented her with a small package containing a book he had written on Thoreau in 1873, and very likely this copy of Poems—the
date of the inscription coincides with Lazarus’s visit. This gesture and their week’s concentrated discussion established his role as mentor to the 27-year-old poet and new adherent of Thoreau.
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