With this volume one of the great masters of world literature is published for the first time in the Modern Library. Long described as the Jewish Mark Twain, Sholom Aleichem (as Alfred Kazin says in his introduction to this book) "perhaps more than any other Jewish writer who has ever lived, writes about Jewishness as if it were a gift, a marvel, an unending theme of wonder and delight." The vitality, the laughter, the compassion in these stories are matchless. Peopled as they are with such extraordinary characters as the lovable Tevye, the dairyman, Menachem-Mendel, professional matchmaker, and a host of others, they go beyond their faithful portrayal of the life of the Yiddish-speaking Jews of eastern Europe to represent, in a way unequaled by any other writer, the Jewish soul.