page_title: Statue of Liberty in popular culture
section_title: Books and stories
hierarchical_section_title: Statue of Liberty in popular culture / Books and stories
caption_attribution_description: Statue of Diana on top of Madison Square Garden, in Manhattan, New York City
context_page_description: After its unveiling in 1886, the Statue of Liberty, by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, quickly became iconic, and began to be featured on posters, postcards, pictures and books. The statue's likeness has also appeared in films, television programs, music videos, and video games, and has been used in logos, on postage stamps and coins, and in theatrical productions. Liberty Enlightening the World remains a popular local, national, and international political symbol of freedom.
context_section_description: The 1911 O. Henry story, "The Lady Higher Up", relates a fanciful conversation between "Mrs. Liberty" and the Madison Square Garden Diana statue by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. In the story, Diana asks "Mrs. Liberty" why she speaks with what Diana terms a "City Hall brogue." Liberty answers: "If ye'd studied the history of art in its foreign complications ye'd not need to ask. If ye wasn't so light-headed and giddy ye'd know that I was made by a Dago and presented to the American people on behalf of the French Government for the purpose of welcomin' Irish immigrants into the Dutch city of New York."
  In Amerika by Franz Kafka, the author inaccurately depicts the statue as holding aloft a sword rather than a torch.
  During the 1940s and 1950s, the iconography of science fiction in the United States was filled with images of ancient, decayed Statues of Liberty, set in the distant future. The covers of famous pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories and Astounding Science Fiction all featured Lady Liberty at one time, surrounded by ruins or by the sediments of the ages, as curious aliens or representatives of advanced or degenerate humans of the future gazed upon her remains. The February 1941 cover of Astounding showed a primitive man and woman approaching on a raft a Statue of Liberty surrounded by wild growth.
  In the final scene of Maggie-Now (1958) by Betty Smith, two characters scatter Maggie's late husband's ashes from the statue's torch.
  Jack Finney's 1970 novel Time and Again takes advantage of the presence, in 1882, of just the arm and torch of the statue in Madison Square Park – where they were exhibited to help raise funds for the pedestal – for an important plot development.
  The final chapter of Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach (1981) reveals that "The Glow-worm became the light inside the torch on the Statue of Liberty, and thus saved a grateful City from having to pay a huge electricity bill every year."
  Ellen Kushner's 1986 Choose Your Own Adventure book Statue of Liberty Adventure has the protagonist exploring the statue to find its original inspiration.
  In the disaster novels Her Name Will Be Faith and Category 7: The Biggest Storm in History, hurricanes cause storm surges that topple the statue into the Hudson River.
  In the first volume of the Southern Victory series How Few Remain (1997) by Harry Turtledove, the Statue of Liberty does not exist in New York City, as relations between the United States and France are poor. This is due to France supporting the Confederate States in the War of Succession and the Second Mexican War. However, in the novel American Empire: Blood and Iron, Liberty Island (still called Bedloe Island in the series) is taken up by a similar but more grim-looking statue called "The Statue of Remembrance", which is German-influenced rather than French. This statue carries a sword in its right hand and a shield in its left. Its full name is Remembrance, holding aloft her bared sword.
  The climax of Philip Shelby's 1998 thriller Gatekeeper had the assassin 'Handyman' using the Statue's crown as a sniper's perch in his plot to murder the wife of a Presidential candidate.
  Nevada Barr's 1999 mystery novel Liberty Falling is set on Liberty Island and Ellis Island, and features deaths caused by falling from the Statue of Liberty.
  In the 2006 Speculative fiction novel Empire by  Orson Scott Card, Two United States Air Force F-16 jets are shot down into New York Harbor with one hitting the gown of the statue.
  The history of the Statue of Liberty is told in the 2008 book Lady Liberty: A Biography., written by Doreen Rappaport, illustrated by Matt Tavares.
  Giannina Braschi's dramatic novel United States of Banana (2011) takes place after the September 11, 2001 attacks, at the Statue of Liberty, where a political prisoner from Puerto Rico is trapped in the dungeon of liberty beneath the 11-pointed star that serves as the base of the Statue.
  The 1999 children's book Disasters by Ned Halley has an illustration of a future New York City behind a seawall, to prevent flooding by sea level rise because of 
caption: Diana by Augustus Saint-Gaudens
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