Ludwig Lewisohn
Home of Ludwig Lewisohn (1882–1955), novelist, Zionist, outspoken critic of Jewish assimilation, and a founding faculty member of Brandeis University in Massachusetts. Lewisohn’s family, originally from Berlin, emigrated to St. Matthews, South Carolina, in 1890, then moved to Charleston. They lived in several houses in town; this one is referenced in Lewisohn’s novel The Case of Mr. Crump (1926). Lewisohn’s parents remained Jewish but quickly assimilated to their southern surroundings; Ludwig himself attended a Methodist Church. Yet, at the High School of Charleston he was taunted as a foreigner and a Jew, and at the College of Charleston he was excluded from a Greek letter fraternity because of his Jewish heritage. As he encountered more and more anti-Semitism in his academic career, he began to investigate and embrace his own faith.
Lewisohn was a prolific translator and a well-known drama critic. He published The Case of Mr. Crump while living in Paris among the expatriate American artistic community. Hailed by such luminaries as Sigmund Freud and Thomas Mann, the novel was set partially in Charleston and based on Lewisohn’s disastrous marriage. His rancorous divorce and his ex-wife’s protracted libel suit against the book kept him in the headlines, even as he became a voice for Jewish pride. His autobiography Up Stream and two of his novels reference Charleston, which he often called “Queenshaven.” Lewisohn is also known for his Jewish historical novel, The Island Within, and for Breathe Upon These, one of the first American works of fiction to reference the Holocaust.
For more information on Ludwig Lewisohn see the Ludwig Lewisohn collection, American Jewish Archives, and see the Ludwig Lewisohn papers, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Ludwig Lewisohn (1882–1955) with his cat Cupcake, 1950
Lewisohn’s Broken Snare
Ludwig Lewisohn’s first novel The Broken Snare, 1908, with inscription addressed to his College of Charleston English professor Lancelot Minor Harris (1872–1940). Harris's papers, which include correspondence with and unpublished writing by Lewisohn are held in Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Lewisohn’s Last Days Of Shylock
Title page of Ludwig Lewisohn’s 1939 book, The Last Days of Shylock, with inscription (1952) addressed to Edward Kronsberg (1903–1985), founder of Edward’s discount department stores in Charleston and the Lowcountry. The Kronsberg family papers are housed in Special Collections, College of Charleston.