The purpose of this work is to offer a study of the novels of Jewish-American author Henry Roth, situating those novels within several contexts, namely: early twentieth century life and ethnography in New York City, immigrant-specifically Jewish-experience, Judaism, with special reference to Eastern European orthodoxy, Roth's autobiographical style, and Hebrew literature. Of particular note is the issue of continuity that Roth himself incessantly sought.The first chapter provides a biographical sketch of Henry Roth, weaving together a brief story of his life that includes commentary upon his boyhood years, his family and relationships, his novels, and the sixty-year-long writer's block that intervened between publication of his first novel, Call It Sleep, and the 1990s volumes of the Mercy of a Rude Stream series; four novels of that series are currently in print. Chapter Two offers a brief outline of Jewish history that not only helps place Roth among the Eastern European Diaspora Jews of early twentieth century New York City but that also introduces the concepts of sin, atonement, and covenant that pervade Roth's writings.Chapter Three is devoted to an examination of Call It Sleep. This third chapter introduces and credits previous Roth scholarship while discussing the novel as an immigrant story, as Hebraic literature in its use of Midrashic elements and themes, and as ethnography. Additionally, this section suggests that Call It Sleep is somewhat polemic in its emphasis upon the Judaic convenant, despite Roth's assimilationist.stance during the years in which he composed the novel.Sequent to a fourth chapter describing the years between 1934 and the 1990s, years in which Roth found himself unable to write another novel and published but sporadically in periodicals, a fifth chapter discusses Roth's Mercy of a Rude Stream series. Those novels, again valuable documents that accurately depict turn-of-thecentury New York as well as the tale of the immigrant, exhibit continuity both among themselves and with Roth's first novel in their covenant thematic and Midrashic structure. Concepts discussed include intertextuality, teshuvah, and kedushah. The conclusion provides summary and is followed by a brief glossary. / Department of English