Israel Zangwill (1864-1926) was a Jewish British humorist and writer, who became known as 'the Jewish Dickens' or 'the Dickens of the Ghetto'. He was an early Zionist but left the Zionist movement in 1905 to lead the Territorialist movement, advocating a Jewish homeland in whatever piece of land might be available and supporting the Uganda Scheme. His ideas included creating the Jewish state in such diverse places as Canada, Australia, Mesopotamia and Cyrenaica. He also supported the feminist and pacifist movements, and the idea of assimilation - writing about the melting of the races into a single nation with a universal religion ('Melting Pot').

The collection frontispieces are illustrated by Alfred Aaron Wolmark (1877-1961) - a Jewish Polish-born Postimpressionist artist and a pioneer of the New Movement in Art. Wolmark's 14 illustrations of this set were exhibited in London's Ben Uri gallery in 1935 at their Israel Zangwill Memorial Exhibition.

First edition. 8vo, 14 volumes, Edition de Luxe, signed by the author and numbered, copy 14 out of 1000; original red half-morocco, gilt, edges with occasional slight foxing, top edge gilt; with frontispieces by Wolmark, including a portrait of Zangwill, all except the portrait in full colour; a very good set.