Beckett, Sylvester B. Hester, The Bride of the Islands: A Poem.

(AMERICAN JUDAICA)

Bailey & Noyes

Portland (Maine)

1860

FIRST EDITION.

A work of fiction, among whose chief characters are the Jew and his daughter the Jewess. These stereotypes invite comparison to Shakespeares' play Merchant of Venice (peopled by the Jew Shylock and his ravishing daughter Jessica), and to Sir Walter Scott's 1819 novel Ivanhoe (whose heroine is the comely Jewess Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York). In the Notes on pp. 333-4 we have a description of the contemporary wealth of Damascene Jewry.