Bidspirit auction | (AMERICA). Wilburn, Cora. “The Slave

(AMERICA). Wilburn, Cora. “The Slave Mother’s Lament.” First appearance of this important anti-slavery poem, in the weekly abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator (Editor, Lloyd Garrison). Four broadsheet pages. (Wilburn’s poem on p. 176). Unbound. Lg. folio. Boston, 2nd November, 1860. First appearance of the important anti-slavery poem “The Slave Mother’s Lament” by Cora Wilburn. Cora Wilburn (born Henrietta Pulfermacher, 1824–1906) led a remarkable transnational life before immigrating to the United States in 1848. Despite early hardship - including pressure to convert to Catholicism - she ultimately returned to Judaism and maintained a complex identity that blended Jewish affiliation with broader spiritual and social concerns. Her literary career reflects a deep engagement with issues central to both Jewish and American history: Slavery, social justice, women’s rights, and religious identity. Writing in both Jewish and Spiritualist publications, she emerged as a powerful moral voice in the mid-19th century. The presence of “The Slave Mother’s Lament” in this issue of The Liberator newspaper is not incidental, it places Wilburn’s literary work at the intersection of Jewish intellectual history and the abolitionist movement, making it far more than just another typical anti-slavery piece. Recent scholarship by Prof. Jonathan Sarna has demonstrated that Wilburn was the first Jewish American novelist, a major revision to the canon of American Jewish literature. His research, including the rediscovery of her 1860 novel Cosella Wayne: Or, Will and Destiny, has received widespread attention.  For further discussion by Prof. Sarna and other scholars on Cora Wilburn, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=R1HqlgUF5Q4&t=2585s