The Fifth Son of the Shoemaker is a book by Donald Corley, illustrated by the author.

"[1] The book was first published in hardcover in New York by Robert M. McBride in September 1930.

The book concerns the story of a Russian family of hereditary shoemakers who have immigrated from Moscow to New York, their establishment in a humble East Side cellar, rise from rags to riches, and travels around the world.

The New York Times called the novel Corley's "best-known work.

"[2] Lin Carter describes Corley's style as possessing a quality of "gorgeousness", which he characterizes as having "the sort of verbal richness that bejewels the pages of Clark Ashton Smith's work or the Arabian Nights ... lazy and singing, [with] a certain playfulness to it ..."[3]