Wexler, Alice

New York. 1984. October 1984. Pantheon Books. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Slightly Worn Dustjacket. 0394529758. 341 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Louise Fili. Jacket photograph by Irwin Horowitz. keywords: Biography Women Emma Goldman Politics Feminsim. FROM THE PUBLISHER - From the moment the twenty-year-old Jewish immigrant Emma Goldman entered the anarchist movement in 1889, to the day in December 1919 when the government finally succeeded in deporting her, she achieved a notoriety unequaled by any other woman in American public life. Now, in this major new biography, historian Alice Wexler offers us for the first time a complete portrait of these most crucial years in Emma Goldman's life. Using Goldman's personal correspondence - a remarkably rich and uncensored record of her feelings, moods, and fantasies - she shows us the private Emma behind the public legend. Wexler traces Goldman's flamboyant career: her involvement with her lover Alexander Berkmans attempt on the life of steel magnate Henry Clay Frick; her inspiring role in the militant labor struggles which rocked the country; her controversial campaigns for women's rights and sexual freedom; and her opposition to the draft in World War I. At the same time, Wexler takes us beyond the surface of Goldman's supremely confident persona to show us another Emma - one plagued by fatigue, self-doubt, and depression and driven by a pervasive sense of an ‘inner void.' A passionate Emma, as well, who in astonishingly explicit letters to the much younger Ben Reitman reveals an intense erotic dependency profoundly at odds with her customary image of strength and freedom. Alice Wexler's sensitive portrayal of Emma Goldman fully explores the tensions between the public myth and the intimate life of this larger-than-life figure, and lets us see how, and at what cost, she created her own legend. inventory #34347 ISBN: 0394529758.