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Yellowed paper. 88, 95 pages. 22 x 15 cm. Nahum Meïr Schaikewitz, also known by his pseudonym "Shomer" (December 18, 1849 in Nesvizh, Minsk, Russian Empire, now Belarus - 25 November 1905 in New York City) was a Yiddish novelist and playwright. Although he was very popular in his time and a giant in Yiddish literature, sometimes styled the "Dumas of Yiddish literature", his reputation was damaged by Sholem Aleichem, who derided his plotting as extravagantly artificial, improbable and characteristic of a cheap potboiler. He distinguished himself as a clever story-teller even as a boy. His first literary efforts took the form of short stories in Hebrew for Ha-Meli?; in this way he became acquainted with such writers of Hebrew as ?ebi Hirsch Scherschewski, Dobsevage, and others. Later he became a business manager in Vilnius, and spent some time in traveling. While in Bucharest he came under the influence of the Jewish theater and resolved to become a dramatic author. He then settled in Odessa, where he became theatrical manager and playwright at the Mariinski Theatre. His play Der Rewizor (Odessa, 1883), an adaptation from Gogol's Revizor (The Government Inspector), proved very successful and showed Schaikewitz's talent as a writer. After the Jewish theater was closed in Russia, Schaikewitz left for to New York, in 1888, where he edited Der Menschenfreund and Der Jüdischer Puck, two Yiddish-language weeklies. Schaikewitz is the author of several Hebrew novels, all representing Jewish life in Russian towns. He became especially known as a writer in Yiddish, taking as a model, and finally excelling, Isaac Meir Dick. He wrote over two hundred novels in Yiddish, partly historical and partly reflecting Jewish life in the small towns and villages of Russia in the middle of the nineteenth century. His language is simple, just as was spoken by the Jewish masses in Lithuania. Many of his historical novels appeared in the Yiddish daily press. Over thirty of Schaikewitz's plays were produced, first in Russia, then in New York, among them being one entitled Tisza-Eslar, on the subject of the blood accusation brought in the Hungarian town of that name. He was the subject of vitriolic attacks by S. Rabinovitz ("Sholem Aleichem"), who, in his Shomer's Mishpa? (Berdychev, 1888), reproached Schaikewitz for his literary deficiencies. Schaikewitz successfully defended himself in a pamphlet entitled Yehi Or (New York, 1898), showing that his literary challenge was to satisfy every level of intelligence, from the householder to the servant-girl who could not understand the works of the later Yiddish writers. Seller Inventory # 010243
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