Leah Goldberg was for most of her life an Israeli writer. She was in her twenties when she immigrated to Palestine (in 1935) and wrote virtually only in Hebrew. She had a great poetic gift, and was the author of some of the most memorable lyrical poetry in modern Hebrew literature. The verses of her last period when, as she felt, words, the stuff of poetry, were deserting her, are perhaps her best. She was also a novelist, a playwright, and a critic. Everything she wrote bears the direct impress of her personality. This collection of essays is not meant to be a systematic history. The reader is given a sort of personal acquaintanceship with some of the major writers of 19th century Russia, and may receive a vivid impression of some of their works and necessarily those which are most famous outside Russia.
