COPYRIGHT, 1889, 1902, 1911 BY ROBERT CLARKE & CO. COPYRIGHT, 1918 BY BLOCH PUBLISHING CO. HARVARD 68*83 PRINTED BY THE PUBLISHERS PRINTING COMPANY, NEW YORK PREFACE TO THE LAST IMPRESSION During the six years which have elapsed since the last edition of this book appeared a great number of novels and dramas containing Jews as principal or minor characters have been published. Most of these have no value as literature. They are ephemeral, and with few exceptions aroused scarcely more than passing interest. Besides the fiction of this character, which has been written in English, many translations from the Yiddish have been made into English. These Yiddish tales belong to the category of the ghetto novel, which forms the subject of the closing chapter of this book. The principles there discussed are largely applicable to these stories and, mutatis mutandis, hold good of them as they do of the books treated in that chapter. A few words, however, must be said touching a class of novels which has been called forth by the changes wrought in American Jewish life by the immigration from eastern Europe. Several writers have attacked the problems which have arisen from the new adjustments which must be made and with more or less acumen have set forth the conflicts between the old-world ghetto view-points and the American environment. Three of the most recent of these latter day American Jewish novels may be mentioned: "Witte Arrives," by Elias Tobenkin, is a well-told story of an immigrant boy who achieves material success but ends far from his starting point when he marries out of the faith. "The Abyss," by Nathan Kussy, is announced as a trilogy whereof the 1 |