Gerald Kersh entered the British world of letters in 1934 with an unusual work. Jews Without Jehovah purported to be a novel, but it included observations on some of the idiosyncracies of real members of the Kersh family--to the point that several of the author's uncles and a cousin filed libel suits against him. The book was withdrawn from sale after fewer than a hundred copies had been sold. Kersh persevered, however, and by the end of World War II he had more than a dozen books in print, short-story collections as well as novels. Indeed, in January 1944 Newsweek magazine reported that four of Kersh's books were on the London best- seller lists at the end of 1943.

Kersh wrote a total of twenty novels, two autobiographical reminiscences, and ten or more collections of short stories, depending upon how one counts collections including stories that have previously appeared in other...