by Ada Langworthy Collier (Author)
Lilith, The Legend of the First Woman is a rendition of the old rabbinical legend of Lilith, the first woman, whose life story was dropped unrecorded from the early world, and whose home, hope, and Eden were passed to another woman. The author warns us in her preface that she has not followed the legend closely. In her hands, Lilith becomes an embodiment of mother-love that has existed forever, and it is her name that lends its itself to the lullabies repeated to young children. The author not only freely changes the legend of Lilith, but is free with the unities of her own story. It is full of internal inconsistencies in narrative, and anachronisms. The legend is to the effect that God first created Adam and Lilith, equal in authority; that the clashing this led to was so great, that Lilith was cast out from Eden, and the marital experiment tried again, on a different principle, by the creation of Eve.