THE HISTORY OF YIDDISH LITERATURE
{i}
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
| Contents Index:A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,R,S,T,U,V,W,Y,Z Footnotes |
THE HISTORY
OF
YIDDISH LITERATURE
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
BY
LEO WIENER
INSTRUCTOR IN THE SLAVIC LANGUAGES
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1899
{iv}
COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Norwood Press
J. B. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
To My Mother
PREFACE
A SUGGESTION to write the present book reached me in the spring of 1898.At that time my library contained several hundreds of volumes of thebest Judeo-German (Yiddish) literature, which had been brought togetherby dint of continued attention and, frequently, by mere chance, for thetransitoriness of its works, the absence of any and all bibliographies,the almost absolute absence of a guide into its literature, and thewhimsicalness of its book trade made a systematic selection of such alibrary a difficult problem to solve. Not satisfied with the meagredetails which could be gleaned from internal testimonies in the works ofthe Judeo-German writers, I resolved to visit the Slavic countries forthe sake of gathering data, both literary and biographical, from whichanything like a trustworthy history of its literature could beconstructed. A recital of my journey will serve as a means oforientation to the future investigator in this or related fields, andwill at the same time indicate my obligations to the men and the booksthat made my sketch possible.
From Liverpool, my place of landing, I proceeded at once to Oxford,where I familiarized myself with the superb Oppenheim collection ofJudeo-German books of