Mottke the Vagabond (Mottke Ganef) by ASH, Sholom [alt. spellings Sholem Asch, Szalom Asz]; Isaac Goldberg, trans - [1917]

Boston: John W. Luce & Co, [1917]. First English Language Edition. Hardcover. First appearance in English of this major work by the greatest of the American Yiddish emigre writers of the Twentieth Century. By all indications, this is only the second of Asch's novels to have been translated into English, though his novels, plays and short-stories had been serialized in American Yiddish-language periodicals beginning in the first decade of the 20th century. Mottke, an alternately humorous and grim picaresque tale of the Warsaw underworld, was the first of Asch's novels to gain him a wide American audience, making him, according to one critic, "a household name for America's Jews" (see Siegel, The Controversial Sholem Asch, Bowling Green: 1976). Octavo (19cm); blue ribbed cloth, lettered in gilt on spine and front cover; 349pp. Some general wear and soil to extremities, small puncture to cloth spine, spine gilt quite toned, contemporary ownership bookplate to front pastedown, else Near Very Good.