"The Golem" by Gustav Meyrink

It's Horror Month, and my thanks to David for suggesting "The Golem." Published in book form in 1915 after serialization in 1913 and 1914, this is a dreamlike account of Athanasius Pernath, a jeweler and art restorer in Prague's Jewish ghetto with a tenuous grasp on his mental stability. The Golem, an anthropomorphic being from Jewishy folklore that's made of clay, hovers over the story as a representative of the ghetto's spirit and consciousness. No less a luminary of weird fiction than H.P. Lovecraft called "The Golem" "the most magnificent weird thing I've come across in aeons."