Joseph Jacobs
Joseph Jacobs was an influential Australian folklorist and writer, born on August 29, 1854, in Sydney, New South Wales. After pursuing studies at the University of Sydney and Cambridge University, he shifted his focus from law to writing, eventually becoming well-known for his collections of fairy tales. Jacobs’s notable works began with "English Fairy Tales" in 1890 and included retellings of stories from various cultures, emphasizing both their origins and the joy of reading for children. His approach involved testing stories on his own children, refining them to ensure they were engaging and educational.
In addition to his contributions to children's literature, Jacobs was a significant Jewish historian of the nineteenth century. He edited the 1906 edition of Funk and Wagnall's Jewish Encyclopedia, contributing extensively to its content, and served as a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. His scholarly pursuits also included studies on Jewish history, particularly concerning the Jewish people in Spain, which continue to be respected in academic circles today. Jacobs passed away on January 30, 1916, in Yonkers, New York, leaving behind a legacy that bridges folklore and Jewish studies.
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Subject Terms
Joseph Jacobs
Folklorist
- Born: August 29, 1854
- Birthplace: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
- Died: January 30, 1916
- Place of death: Yonkers, New York
Biography
Joseph Jacobs was born on August 29, 1854, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, the son of John and Sarah Jacobs. After graduating from the University of Sydney, he moved to England, intending to complete a law degree at Cambridge University and return to Australia to practice law. However, after finishing studies in moral philosophy at Cambridge he went to London instead, now determined to become a writer. He married Georgina Horne, and the couple had three children, Philip, Sydney, and May.
Jacobs’s dream of writing great literature was altered in the face of his need to provide for a family, and he turned to writing essays and book reviews, and ghostwriting technical books. His review of George Eliot’s novel Daniel Deronda (1876) drew the attention of Eliot and her circle, and Jacobs was introduced to writers and intellectuals who became lifelong friends. He went to Berlin for several months to study Jewish literature and bibliography, and returned to England in 1878 to study anthropology and folklore.
Ten years later, he began the work that would make him famous, researching and retelling fairy tales. His first book was English Fairy Tales (1890), followed by other collections of tales from particular countries or cultures. He enjoyed children, and they often took to him on first meeting. His children’s books always had the twin goals of providing meticulously researched information about the origins and variations of each story and of providing exciting stories that would help children learn to love reading. Before publishing each story, Jacobs tried it out on his own children, revising until they approved of his telling.
After 1894, Jacobs’s interest in fairy tales seemed to wane. In 1896, he traveled to the United States to lecture, and when he was offered an editing job in New York he decided to move his family there. They settled in Yonkers, near New York City, overlooking the Hudson River. Jacobs began collecting and studying the folklore of New England, but never published this work. He died on January 30, 1916, in Yonkers.
In addition to his career as a folklorist and anthropologist, Jacobs was known as one of the most important Jewish historians of the nineteenth century. He edited the 1906 edition of Funk and Wagnall’s Jewish Encyclopedia, writing some 450 of the articles himself, and edited the journal American Hebrew for eight years. From 1906 to 1913, he was registrar and a professor of English literature and rhetoric at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He published scholarly books about literature, Biblical archeology, and Jewish history. In the twenty-first century, Jacobs is best known for his fairy tale collections, but his studies of the history of the Jewish people in Spain are still valued by scholars.