According to _Meyer’s Konversations Lexikon_ (Sixth edition, 1904, Volume VIII, page 77), Herman Goedsche was born in February, 1815, in Trachenberg, Silesia, and died on November 8, 1878, at Warmbrunn. He was employed in the postal service, but as he was implicated in the Waldeck forgery case, he left the service in 1849, and devoted himself to literary work. Under the name of “Armin” he published a number of works of fiction, but he was best known under the name of “Sir John Retcliffe,” having published a series of sensational novels describing the Crimean war, “Sebastopol,” “Rena-Sahib,” “Villafranca,” “Puebla,” “Biarritz,” in 1866. A new edition of these works appeared in Berlin in 1903-4. _Brockhaus’ Konversations Lexikon_ (supplement volume XVII, 1904) refers to Goedsche, the novelist, known under the name of “Sir John Retcliffe” (formerly “Armin”), as having played an infamous role in the Waldeck forgery case. He was compelled to leave the postal service, and later became a member of the staff of the _Preussische Kreutz Zeitung_. The chapter of the Goedsche-Retcliffe novel which on even a cursory reading will be found to contain the very essence of the Nilus Protocols was published as a separate booklet in a Russian translation in 1872, avowedly as a work of fiction. I have found a copy of this little volume in the Russian Department of the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. An examination of this chapter, entitled “The Jewish Cemetery in Prague and the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel,” will disclose the fact that every substantive statement contained in the Protocols and elaborated in them is to be found in the Goedsche-Retcliffe novelette. We are thus supplied with an early draft of the so-called Protocols, which have now been given worldwide publicity by anti-Jewish propagandists, and which were first introduced to the world in the form of a clumsy piece of blood-curdling fiction of the dime-novel variety. In substantiation of this statement I now present a translation of this chapter of the Russian version of this novel found in the Library of Congress in Washington, published in St. Petersburg nearly fifty years ago. [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF TITLE PAGE OF THE FANTASTIC STORY PUBLISHED IN RUSSIA IN 1872, CONTAINING THE FIRST DRAFT OF THE PROTOCOLS IN THE FORM OF FICTION.] [Transcription: ЕВРЕЙСКОЕ КЛАДБИЩЕ ВЪ ПРАГѢ и СОВѢТЪ ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛЕЙ ДВѢНАДЦАТИ КОЛѢНЪ ИЗРАИЛЕВЫХЪ. * * * * * С.-ПЕТЕРБУРГЪ. ТИПОГРАФІЯ ТОВАРИЩЕСТВА «ОБЩЕСТВЕННАЯ ПОЛЬЗА», по мойкѣ, у круглаго рынка, № 5. 1872. ] [Transliteration: EVREJSKOE KLADBISHHE V PRAGE i SOVET PREDSTAVITELEJ DVENADCATI KOLEN IZRAILEVYH. * * * * * S.-PETERBURG. TIPOGRAFIJA TOVARISHHESTVA «OBSHHESTVENNAJA POL'ZA», po mojke, u kruglago rynka, № 5. 1872. ] _Translation of Title Page_