BIBLIOGRAPHY

Only those books are included in this list to which re-

ference has been made more than once in the literaryparallels. It has been kept as far as possible within narrowlimits since as it has not been my intention to copy outthe work done by Liebrecht, Köhler, Oesterley and above allby Bolte and Polivka. I deemed it sufficient to refer tothese works where those who wish to pursue the com-parative study further will find all the material required.

As the chief object of this publication was chiefly tooffer to the student as rich a material as could be gatheredfrom the Jewish literature, an attempt was made to giveas full references as I could bring together during thetwentyfive years spent on the collection. It must be re-membered, however, that it is not an easy task to do fulljustice to a literature which covers a period of close upontwenty centuries, and it is not unlikely that other refer-ences will be found in works not noticed by me. Again,if a scientific purpose were to be served, it was necessaryto follow a new method. It is of the utmost importanceto try and establish as far as possible the chronological se-quence of the Hebrew books referred to, a task renderedextremely difficult when one considers that by far thelargest portion consists of anonymous works. Opinion asto their date and antiquity differs very widely amongstscholars; it must be borne in mind, however, that thelargest section consists of compilations which, passing fromhand to hand, have undergone those changes which are socharacteristic of popular literature.

Every copyist who dealt with an anonymous writingdeemed himself justified in manipulating it according to