2: Cover art for Miriam Karpilove’s "Diary of a Lonely Girl, or the Battle against Free Love," 1918.

2: Cover art for Miriam Karpilove’s "Diary of a Lonely Girl, or the Battle against Free Love," 1918.

Karpilove’s novel came out in book form in 1918, after having first been serialized in the newspaper Di varhayt. The image on the cover appears to be a portrait of Karpilove herself.

Suggested Activity: Ask students to consider the cover and describe the details they notice. Some observations you might want to highlight include: the woman on the cover appears alone, rather than with a suitor; we see only her face and not her full body; she gazes into the distance rather than directly at the viewer; the picture is composed only of shades of brown except for the highlights, which are blue; the letters of the title are large and bold. What impressions do each of these details convey about the novel? What might a reader expect based on the cover?

Invite students to create their own cover for the novel or to write a paragraph describing what their cover would look like. Then have them explain their reasoning for the choices they made.

Source: Miriam Karpilove, Tage-bukh fun a elende meydel (New York: S. Kantrowitz, 1918), cover illustration.