great renown for its young author, Kalman Schulman of Wilna (1826-1900).

From the literary point of view, Schulman's achievement is interesting
because of the kind of literature it was the first to offer to readers
of Hebrew--pastime literature, fiction in place of the serious writings
of the humanists. The enormous success obtained by this first work of
the translator, the repeated editions which it underwent, testify to the
existence of a public that craved light literature. Thenceforth,
romanticism was to occupy the first place, and the _Melizah_ style
was appropriated for the purposes of fiction, to the delight of the
friends of the Bible language.

In spite of his small originality, it happened that Kalman Schulman
contributed more than any other writer to the achievement of securing a
place for Hebrew in the hearts of the people. For the length of a half-
century, he was regarded popularly as the master of Hebrew style.
Romantic and conservative in religion, enthusiastic for whatsoever the
Jewish genius produced, naive in his conception of life, he let his
activity play upon all the fields of literature. He published a History
of the World in ten volumes; a geography, likewise in ten volumes; four
volumes of biographical and literary essays on the Jewish writers of the
Middle Ages; a national romance dealing with the time of Bar Kokbah (a
composite made up of a number of translations); and curious Biblical and
Talmudic essays. [Footnote: These works, first published at Wilna, have
been republished again and again.]

His language is the Hebrew of Isaiah. The artificialities and the undue
emphasis of his style, his childlike views, his romantic sentimentality
in all that touches Jews and Judaism, which appealed directly to the
hearts of the simple, ignorant readers who constituted his public,