KLEIN, Julius Leopold (1804-1876), a German writer of Jewish origin, was born at Miscolcz, in Hungary, in 1804. He was educated at the gymnasium in Pest, and studied medicine in Vienna and Berlin. After travelling in Italy and Greece, he settled as a man of letters in Berlin, where he remained until his death in 1876. He was the author of many dramatic works, among others the historical tragedies Maria von Medici, Luines, Zenobia, Moreto, Maria, Strafford, and Heliodora, and the comedies Die Herzogin, Ein Schützling, and Voltaire. These plays were published between 1841 and 1867. The tendency of Klein as a dramatist was to become bombastic and obscure, but many of his characters are vigorously conceived, and in nearly all his tragedies there are passages of brilliant rhetoric. He is chiefly known as the author of an elaborate Geschichte des Dramas (1865-1876), in which he undertook to record the history of the drama both in ancient and in modern times. He died when about to enter upon the Elizabethan period, to the treatment of which he had looked forward as the chief part of his task. The work, which is in 12 bulky volumes, gives proof of immense learning, but is marred by many eccentricities of style.