# Elizabeth Polack > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Elizabeth_Polack > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Elizabeth_Polack.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Polack > Source revision: 1318902639 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{short description|English playwright}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2015}} {{Use British English|date=December 2015}} {{Infobox Writer | name = Elizabeth Polack | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | language = English | occupation = Playwright | subject = Melodrama | notablework = ''Esther, the Royal Jewess'' (1835); ''St. Clair of the Isles'' (1838) | relatives = [Maria Polack](/source/Maria_Polack) | years_active = 1830—1838 | portaldisp = yes }} '''Elizabeth Polack''' was an [English](/source/England) playwright of the 1830s, notable for being the first Jewish woman [melodrama](/source/melodrama)tist in England.Weltman, p. 204. ==Life and works== [[File:Mrs Gomersal as Queen Esther.jpg|thumb|alt=Mrs Gomersal as Queen Esther|Mrs Gomersal as Queen Esther in ''King Anasuerus'' (London: J.K. Green, 1837) ([https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dd-ecc1-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 NYPL]) ]] Few historical records survive which detail Elizabeth Polack's life. Although neither the year nor place of her birth, nor her death, are now known, evidence of her activity as a playwright in [London](/source/London) between 1830 and 1838 remains. Contemporary records credit her with seven plays, only two of which, ''Esther, the Royal Jewess; or The Death of [Haman](/source/Haman_(Bible))'' and ''St. Clair of the Isles; or The Outlaw of [Barra](/source/Barra)'', have survived. ''Alberti; or the Mines of Idria'' was performed at the Royal Pavilion on 10 May 1834 is believed to be by Polack. At the time, this play was incorrectly advertised as ''Alberti, or, the Mines of India'' in some publications.{{cite news|title=Royal Pavilion Theatre|newspaper=Morning Advertiser|date=12 May 1834|page=3}} ''Esther'', with a story taken from the [Old Testament](/source/Old_Testament), a version of the tradtitonal Jewish ''[Purimshpil](/source/Purim_spiel)'' and considered in its time to be a type of an "Exotic East" melodrama, was successfully produced in 1835 at London's Royal [Pavilion Theatre, Whitechapel](/source/Pavilion_Theatre%2C_Whitechapel) in the [East End](/source/East_End_of_London)Conway, p. 104 (the Pavilion was later a centre for [Yiddish theatre](/source/Yiddish_theatre) in London).{{cite news|title=We Understand|newspaper=Waterford Chronicle|date=26 December 1835|page=3 }} Her ''St. Clair'', however, based on an 1803 novel by [Elizabeth Helme](/source/Elizabeth_Helme), met, when it debuted at the [Royal] Victoria Theatre in 1838,Brown et al. with a modest reception. It is apparently the source of the melodramatic cliché, "Foiled again!" Polack's presumed aunt (or perhaps mother), [Maria Polack](/source/Maria_Polack), was one of the first Anglo-Jewish novelists. Polack may have also been related to [Joel Samuel Polack](/source/Joel_Samuel_Polack), author of two well-received travel books about New Zealand. Joel's biographer writes that he lived with his sister in Piccadilly when he first returned to England; that sister may have been Elizabeth.Franceschina, 1997. Such a family background would have offered support to her writing career, even from her position within a marginalized community. ==Plays by Elizabeth Polack== *''Woman's Revenge'' (1832; attributed by some sources to [John Howard Payne](/source/John_Howard_Payne)) *''Alberti; or The Mines of Idria'' (1834, no copy known to exist){{cite news|title=Royal Pavilion Theatre |newspaper=Morning Advertiser|date= 12 May 1834|page=3}} *''Esther, the Royal Jewess; or The Death of Haman'' (1835) *''Echo; or the Whisper of Westminster Bridge'' (1835){{cite news|title=Pavilion Theatre |newspaper=Playbill|date= June 1835}} *''The Golden Shield; or Days of Numa Pompilius'' (1836){{cite news|title=Royal Pavilion Theatre |newspaper=Morning Advertiser|date= 18 Jan 1836}} *''St. Clair of the Isles; or The Outlaw of Barra'' (1838) *''Angeline; or The Golden Chain'' (no date, no copy known to exist) ==Notes & references== ===Notes=== {{reflist}} ===References=== *Brown, Susan, et al. "[https://orlando.cambridge.org/people/35b71abd-e7bf-40e0-a13b-85d761416b9f Elizabeth Polack]." ''Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present''. Ed. Susan Brown, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge UP, n.d. 22 Mar. 2013. Accessed 17 Sept. 2022. *Conway, David (2012). ''Jewry in Music''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|9781107015388}} * Franceschina, John. "[http://www.etang.umontreal.ca/bwp1800/essays/franceschina_esther_intro.html Introduction to Elizabeth Polack's ''Esther''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070713225311/http://www.etang.umontreal.ca/bwp1800/essays/franceschina_esther_intro.html |date=13 July 2007 }}". ''British Women Playwrights Around 1800'', 11 paragraphs. 15 October 2000. *{{Cite book |title=Sisters of Gore: seven Gothic melodramas by British women, 1790-1843 |first=John Charles |last=Franceschina |pages=227–284 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8waoQn5L0wAC&pg=PA227 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=1997|isbn=9780815317814 }} *{{cite book|last=Weltman|first=Sharon Aronofsky| editor-last1=Hartley | editor-first1=Lucy | editor-last2=Batchelor | editor-first2=Jennie | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wRRwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA204|chapter="Women Playwrights and the London Stage" | title=The History of British Women's Writing, 1830–1880|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2018|isbn=978-1-137-58465-6|page=204}} ==Further reading== *Bennett, Susan. "Genre trouble: Joanna Baillie, Elizabeth Polack — tragic subjects, melodramatic subjects." ''Women and playwriting in nineteenth-century Britain''. Eds. Tracy C. Davis and Ellen Donkin. Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 215–232. ([https://archive.org/details/womenplaywriting0000unse/page/n3/mode/2up Open access], Internet Archive) *Carruthers, Jo. "Melodrama and the ‘art of government’: Jewish emancipation and Elizabeth Polack’s ''Esther, the Royal Jewess; or The Death of Haman!''" ''Literature & History'' Volume 29, Issue 2 (November 2020):144–163. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9125-4297 https://doi.org/10.1177/0306197320945947 ([https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/reader/10.1177/0306197320945947 PDF/EPUB]) {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Polack, Elizabeth}} Category:Jewish women writers Category:Jewish English writers Category:English dramatists and playwrights Category:English women dramatists and playwrights Category:19th-century English women writers Category:19th-century English writers Category:19th-century deaths Category:Year of birth unknown Category:Place of birth unknown Category:Year of death unknown Category:Place of death unknown Category:Jewish dramatists and playwrights Category:19th-century English Jews --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Elizabeth Polack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Polack) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Polack?action=history)). 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