Mendele the Bookseller is a creation of the literary master Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh. Mendele travels through Ukraine with horse and cart to provide Jews with books. During his journeys, he is offered manuscripts, which he edits and publishes with explanatory forewords. This fiction was consistently maintained by Abramovitsh from the beginning of his career as a Yiddish writer in 1864. At Abramovitsh's death in 1917, Mendele was widely known as the author of both disturbing and humorous Yiddish novels, while the name Abramovitsh had nearly faded away. This book explains why Abramovitsh employed this fiction, tracing the emergence of modern Yiddish literature between 1864 and 1900. Abramovitsh was born in 1835 near Minsk. After the death of his father in 1848, he dedicated himself to Talmud study but fell victim to a professional fate in 1852.