Jacobs

JACOBS, JOSEPH (Aug. 29, i854-Jan. 30,
1916), historian, critic, folklorist, son of John
and Sarah Jacobs, was born in Sydney, New
South Wales. He w'as educated at the Sydney
grammar school and attended the universities of
Sydney and London. At about the age of eigh-
teen he entered St. John's College, Cambridge,
England, and was awarded the degree of B.A.
(senior moralist) in 1876. As a student his spe-
cial interests were mathematics, history, philoso-
phy, anthropology, and general literature. George
Eliot's Daniel Deronda was published in that
year and its foreshadowing of the modern Pales-
tinian movement aroused considerable criticism,
to which Jacobs made reply in his first published
essay, "Mordecai," Macmillan's Magazine, June
1877. This incident aroused his interest in Jew-
ish studies and he went to Berlin and studied
under Moritz Steinschneider and M. Lazarus,
distinguished Jewish scholars of their day. Re-
turning to England he devoted himself to anthro-
pological studies under and later in association
with Sir Francis Galton, applying these studies
to such subjects as the comparative distribution
of Jewish ability, the Jewish race, and social,
vital, and anthropometric statistics relating to
them, in which he was the pioneer. These studies
he collected in a volume entitled Studies in Jew-
ish Statistics, Social, Vital and Anthropometric
(London, 1891). He also wrote Studies in Bib-
lical Archeology (1894), applying the anthropo-
logical method to Biblical institutional history.
On Jan. n and 13, 1882, Jacobs contributed
articles to the London Times under the title "Per-
secution of the Jews in Russia" which were
afterward reprinted in book form, with map and
appendix. These articles attracted wide attention
and resulted in the establishment of the "Mansion
House Committee," afterward called the "Russo-
Jewish Committee," which took important steps,
in association with like committees on the conti-
nent of Europe and in America, for the ameli-
oration of the condition of the Jews in Russia.
Of this committee Jacobs served as honorary sec-
retary up to 1900. In 1887 he was active in pro-
moting the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition
held that year (in celebration of Queen Victoria's
Jubilee) and with Lucien Wolf prepared a Cat-
alogue of the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhii
bition (1887, 1888) and edited with the same
collaborator Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica: A Bib-
liographical Guide to Anglo-Jewish History
(1888). In 1898 he was elected the president of
the English Jewish Historical Society. The most
important result of his studies in Anglo-Jewish
history was The Jews of Angevin England (1893)
in the series of English History by Contempo-

Jacobs

rary Writers. A brief visit to Spain in 1888 pro-
duced An Inquiry into the Sources of the His-
tory of the Jews in Spain (London, 1894), which
was the starting point for a methodical examina-
tion of the Jewish manuscript sources in Span-
ish archives. In recognition of the value of this
work he was elected a corresponding member of
the Royal Academy of History of Madrid, Here
too should be included his Story of Geographical
Discovery, which passed through several editions
(1898, 1902, 1913, 1915), and was finally pub-
lished under the title, Geographical Discovery.
He projected a great work to be called "Euro-
pean Ideals" for which he prepared a detailed
syllabus privately printed under that title in 1911.
Worthy of mention among his historical studies
is an historical novel, As Others Saw Him, deal-
ing with the life of Jesus, published anonymous-
ly in 1895.

Jacobs' anthropological studies naturally led
him to folklore, and in 1888 he edited The Ear-
liest English Version of the Fables of Bidpai.
The same year he published an essay, Jewish
Diffusion of Folk Tales. Then followed The Fa-
bles of &sop, as First Printed by Caxton (2
vols., 1889), the first volume of which contained
his history of the JEsopic fable. This edition was
frequently reprinted and translated into other
languages. In 1890 he began a series of fairy
tales—English Fairy Tales (1890) which had
numerous editions; Celtic Fairy Tales (1891);
Indian Fairy Tales (1892); More English Fairy
Tales (1893); More Celtic Fairy Tales (1894);
and Europa's Fairy Book (1916). He also ed-
ited Barlaam and Josaphat (1896); The Thou-
sand & One Nights; or, Arabian Nights' Enter-
tainments (6 vols., 1896); and Tales, Done into
English by Joseph Jacobs (1899), from Boc-
caccio. In his generation he stood alongside of
Andrew Lang as one of the popular writers of
fairy tales for English-speaking children. He
edited Folk-lore and with Alfred Nutt, the Pa-
pers and Transactions of the International Folk-
lore Congress of 1891. He interspersed these
activities with numerous literary essays and re-
views and minor studies of Jewish interest. He
was an important contributor to the London
Athenaeum. Among his numerous literary studies
may be mentioned his volume on Tennyson and
"In Memoriam" (1892), his translation and edi-
tions of Baltasar Gracian's Art of Worldly Wis-
dom (1892,1913), his edition of Howell's letters,
Epistolae-Ho-elianae: The Familiar Letters of
James Howell, Historiographer Royal to Charles
II (2 vols., 1892), and of Painter's Palace of
Pleasure (3 vols., 1890). His combination of
philosophical and mathematical knowledge en-

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