THE WANDERING JEW

By Eugene Sue

Book I.



A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR OF

The Wandering Jew

EUGENE SUE

(1804-1857)

Time and again physicians and seamen have made noteworthy reputations as
novelists. But it is rare in the annals of literature that a man trained
in both professions should have gained his greatest fame as a writer of
novels. Eugene Sue began his career as a physician and surgeon, and then
spent six years in the French Navy. In 1830, when he returned to France,
he inherited his father's rich estate and was free to follow his
inclination to write. His first novel, "Plick et Plock", met with an
unexpected success, and he at once foreswore the arts of healing and
navigation for the precarious life of a man of letters. With varying
success he produced books from his inexhaustible store of personal
experiences as a doctor and sailor. In 1837, he wrote an authoritative
work on the French Navy, "Histoire de la marine Francaise".

More and more the novel appealed to his imagination and suited his gifts.