Hyman Kaplan, or HYMAN KAPLA*N as he habitually signs himself, is a fictional character in a series of well-received humorous stories by Leo Rosten, published under the pseudonym "Leonard Q. Ross" in The New Yorker in the 1930s and later collected in two books, The Education of HYMAN KAPLA*N and The Return of HYMAN KAPLA*N. Rosten noted that he was frequently asked if Mr Kaplan was his alter ego, and that he often felt it was the other way around. The first collection (Education, 1937) was a "close second" for one U.S. National Book Award in 1938. The second collection (Return, 1959) was one of eighteen National Book Award for Fiction finalists in 1960. With many changes, Rosten rewrote the two books as one, published as ''O KAPLAN! My KAPLAN!'' in 1976. The books were adapted as a musical play produced in 1968, namely The Education of H.

Hyman Kaplan

Mr Kaplan is an immigrant and a pupil at a New York night class in English. He is extremely diligent and enthusiastic, but seems completely incapable of learning: the teacher, Mr Parkhill, is eventually driven to conclude that, although Mr Kaplan admits that English has rules – "good rules, sensible rules" – he is quite unable to admit that the rules apply to him. (In The Return of HYMAN KAPLAN, Kaplan's English pronunciation has improved substantially between semesters.) Mr Kaplan is extroverted and highly assertive, particularly when his moral sense has been outraged by some perceived injustice in class or in American history, and he frequently gets into noisy disagreements with other class members. Mr Kaplan usually signs his name in colored crayon with green stars between red letters outlined in blue. In the last story of all, "Mr KAPLAN the Eumoirous", he signs a note to his teacher simply "Hyman Kaplan", but addresses it to "Mr PARKHIL*L". Mr Parkhill wonders if he will ever again be so honored. Mr Kaplan was born in Kiev, has lived in America for fifteen years, and claims (on Columbus Day) that his birthday is October 12. From his pronunciation of English (the characters' various idioms are a major source of the stories' humor), it appears that Mr Kaplan's native language is Yiddish. This would seem to be confirmed when Kaplan calls flowers "bloomers", and a fellow student reminds him not to mix up two languages, leading the teacher to reflect that Mr Kaplan's native language refers to flowers as Blumen.

The teacher

Mr Parkhill is the point-of-view character in the stories, a staid, kind-hearted, mild-mannered teacher with a tendency to think of his pupils in terms of classical literature. Mr Parkhill is rigorously fair-minded, often to his own detriment when faced with Mr Kaplan's very individual brand of logic. He is also a lonely and rather tragic character: when the class present him with a new briefcase with the initials "M.P." on it as a birthday present, he is at first puzzled since his first name does not begin with M; then realizes that the letters stand for "Mr Parkhill" and that he cannot remember the last time anyone addressed him by his first name.

Other members of the class