KLEEBERG, MINNA. 1841-1878. Gedichte. Louisville: Henry Knöfel; New-York: Willmer u. Rogers...

KLEEBERG, MINNA. 1841-1878. Gedichte. Louisville: Henry Knöfel; New-York: Willmer u. Rogers News Co., 1877. 12mo. Text in German. Publisher's cloth, gilt. Minor wear to ends of spine. A FINE COPY OF THE GERMAN-AMERICAN JEWISH POETESS'S ONLY BOOK OF POETRY PUBLISHED IN AMERICA, RARE. Minna Kleeberg arrived in America in 1866, having established a reputation in her native Germany as a poet. Her ten hymns published in Isaac Wise's Hymns, Psalms and Prayers: in English and German (Cincinnati, 1868), the most popular Jewish-American hymnbook of the 19th-century, were more than any other poet. She moved with her husband Rabbi Kleeberg to Louisville, KY, and published her only stand alone book of poetry Gedichte in 1877. The couple moved to New Haven in 1878, where Minna Kleeberg soon passed away. Rabbi Kleeberg noted in his eulogy, 'Almost from her childhood she complained of the subordinate position which tradition and custom assigned to woman. Upon her thirteenth birthday and the following Sabbath, she shed bitter tears that she was not, like Jewish boys of her own age, entitled to take part in the public reading of the law, and by this rite be solemnly consecrated to the cause of Israel...' (Karp, From the ends of the earth: Judaic treasures of the Library of Congress, 1991, pp 177-8.) A rare American imprint of a popular Jewish American poetess. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing