page_title: Emma Lyon
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Emma Lyon / Biography / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: The Soldier's Farewell, Composed by I. Nathan, sung by Mr. Braham … The words taken from Miss Emma Lyon's Poems
context_page_description: Emma Henry was an English Jewish Romantic poet. Her volume Miscellaneous Poems was one of the first collections of poetry by a Jewish woman in English.
context_section_description: Sometime before 1812, Lyon's father developed cataracts, becoming blind and unable to work. In an attempt to ease her family's financial troubles, Lyon published Miscellaneous Poems (1812) by subscription. The collection was dedicated to Princess Charlotte of Wales, who was one of the subscribers to the work, together with her father, the Prince Regent, afterwards King George IV, the Duke of Kent, and the Duke of Cambridge. Other subscribers included Masters and Wardens of Oxbridge colleges, academics, clergyman, and peers, from as far away as Suriname, West Indies. The volume chiefly of short odes, with some few sonnets, and stanzas on various subjects. Several of her poems were set to music by Isaac Nathan and performed on the London stage by tenor John Braham.
  On the weekend of 13–14 June 1812, Lyon was assaulted by one William Simmons, who lived in the same building as her in London. Lyon's Hebrew student, barrister Daniel French, to whom she had dedicated a poem in her collection, intervened on her behalf. French was battered by Simmons and his friend Squires, who were later sentenced to six months in prison.
  Lyon married merchant Abraham Henry (1789–1840) in 1816. After her marriage, she continued to write occasional poems, which were recited at public institutions, such as the Jews' Hospital, Jews' Free School, and Society of Friends of Foreigners In Distress. None of her manuscript poems, however, are not known to have survived.
caption: Isaac Nathan's The Soldier's Farewell, a musical adaption of Lyon's poems
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