Growing up in Brookville, Pauli Libsohn was always intrigued by a book on her shelf. Her mother, however, was protective of it, and when they moved, she stored it away elsewhere, hidden.
When Pauli Libsohn rediscovered and opened the book after her mother’s death, she found that it was a Shakespeare textbook filled with handwritten essays her mother wrote for a course at Queens College in 1942. She was so impressed by the writing that she decided to publish them for the whole world to read.
The completed book, titled “My Mother and Shakespeare: A Daughter’s Journey,” includes photographs of the original essays – teacher’s notes, final grades and all – as well as the transcribed text and forewords and afterwards that Pauli Libsohn wrote. It is the fifth book Pauli Libsohn has published. Three are poetry and prose Mitzi Libsohn wrote, and the second most recent is an account Pauli Libsohn wrote of her parents’ relationship titled “What Is Love.”
“Richard doesn’t dally with apologies and justifications to lessen the horror of his disposing so methodically of his obstacles to the throne,” Mitzi Libsohn wrote in a paper titled “A Review of ‘Richard III.” “But although Richard does rise without much opposition, it is he alone who in the end destroys his own strength, his own support.”
“I said, ‘my goodness, this was written by a 20-year-old girl, and she saved it,’” Pauli Libsohn said, recalling discovering the essays for the first time.
She has a few inklings about why her mother saved essays from a college course for so many years, the primary one being that Shakespeare was such a central part of her mother’s character.
Mitzi Libsohn would quote Shakespeare constantly, her daughter said. She would even play Franz Schubert’s “Who Is Sylvia” on the piano, an accompaniment to a poem from “The Two Gentleman of Verona.”
“Everything always reverted back to Shakespeare, no matter what it was,” Pauli Libsohn said.
Pauli Libsohn didn’t take to Shakespeare the same way. When her class was taken into the auditorium in junior high school to watch a film adaptation of “Hamlet,” she hated it, she said.
But the way she describes her mother’s essays would have you fooled. She can’t choose a favorite.
Beyond being documentation of her mother’s writing skills, the book is physical history of Queen’s College, Pauli Libsohn said. She has reached out to the college about the book and will meet with the dean of the Division of Arts and Humanities, Janice Smith.
The book could even be a tool for students currently studying at the college, Pauli Libsohn said.
As for Mitzi Libsohn’s grades on the papers, they’re not all A’s. Pauli Libsohn said her mother told her about how tough the professor was and that it was always a struggle to earn a good grade.
“She got a C on this,” Pauli Libsohn said, flipping through her book, grinning.
But that’s no less reason to cherish what she finds to be magnificent writing and just one more opportunity to immortalize her mother, both the woman she knew and the more secretive side, through books.
Pauli Libsohn’s next book will be published in the spring, she said. The book, “Messages of Love Remembered,” will be a follow-up to “What Is Love.” “My Mother and Shakespeare: A Daughter’s Journey” is available on Amazon.com
