Between the Covers

Hardcover. Later printing (first published in 1907). Some modest edgewear, a short tear on one page, a small crack in the paper over the front hinge, a nice, very good copy without dustwrapper. Samson Raphaelson's copy with his ownership signature: "Raphaelson," and his penciled note on the front fly about his fellow-Jewish author: "I'm prejudiced against this man's work – his feeling, style, the very words he uses, his false elegance & hollow eloquence, his pallid facility. Even when he is good I detest him. Compare him to Sholem Aleichem, who IS gifted & IS a Jew & LOVES human beings, especially Jews." He has also made a couple of pencil notes in the text, much of the order of the one on page 35: "Mr. Z., you're a worm." Raphaelson was a successful playwright, best-known for his play *The Jazz Singer.* Zangwill, the London-born son of Russian Jewish refugees, was a popular novelist of his day and the author of *Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People*, which awoke England to the plight of Jewish refugees and helped derail the then current anti-alien legislation. A fascinating association.

Item #84608