Gustav Meyrink has long attracted readers for his masterful novels, examining the supernatural, the macabre, the spiritual, and the occult. Nowhere are his skills in greater evidence than in The Golem, his most successful novel, which is also critically acknowledged to be his greatest work.The legend of the Golem, associated with the sixteenth-century Rabbi Low of Prague, who is said to have created an artificial man of clay -- the Golem -- to protect the inhabitants of the ghetto, has been told many times, but by none more effectively than by Meyrink. Like his contemporary, Kafka, Meyrink excels at creating an atmosphere of fear and apprehension.