Adam Mickiewicz, The Works of Adam Mickiewicz, Vol. IV [1868]

Title: The Works of Adam Mickiewicz. Vol. IV. A complete edition compiled by the author’s children.

Author: Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855) [poet, playwright, journalist, and political activist; the greatest poet of Polish Romanticism].

Publisher: Paris, Księgarnia Luxemburgska.

Year of publication: 1868.

Format: 21 cm.

Volume: [2], 379, [1] pp., [1] plate.

Binding: Contemporary half-leather binding.

Volume IV of the Paris edition of Adam Mickiewicz’s works, announced as a “complete edition prepared by the author’s children.” Among the siblings, the edition was prepared primarily by the poet’s eldest son, Władysław Mickiewicz, the custodian of his father’s manuscripts and legacy. It was published by the Paris-based Księgarnia Luxemburgska, which Władysław managed. This publishing house released Polish patriotic books, including the series “Biblioteka Ludowa Polska.” After the fall of the January Uprising, many of these titles could not be published in the partitioned territories. The volume includes a plate with a steel engraving.

Adam Mickiewicz was born on December 24, 1798, in the Nowogródek region. He studied in Vilnius and was a member of the Philomaths Society, for which he was exiled deep into Russia in 1824. From 1829 onward, he lived in exile. In Paris, he taught Slavic literature at the Collège de France, and in 1848 he organized the Polish Legion in Italy. He is the author of *Ballads and Romances*, *Grażyna*, *Konrad Wallenrod*, *Dziady*, and the epic *Pan Tadeusz*. His work helped shape Polish national consciousness during the era of the Partitions. He is regarded as a national poet not only in Poland but also in Lithuania and Belarus. He died on November 26, 1855, in Constantinople, where he was organizing military units to fight against Russia. In 1890, his ashes were transferred to Wawel Cathedral.

Władysław Mickiewicz (1838–1926), the editor of this volume, wrote the four-volume *The Life of Adam Mickiewicz*. In 1903, he founded the Adam Mickiewicz Museum in Paris, located in the building of the Polish Library.

Provenance: a piece free of institutional stamps and ownership inscriptions.

This is a 19th-century Parisian volume of Mickiewicz’s works, published by the poet’s family, in a period binding. A must-have for collectors of Mickiewicz works, émigré prints, and 19th-century Parisian editions, as well as for those seeking complete blocks for artistic bindings.

The inner block is completely intact and mechanically stable; the original stitching firmly holds the pages together, with no loose text pages; the volume is complete textually, and the steel engraving plate is preserved within the block, with a clear impression. The paper has good stiffness, with scattered foxing, acid-induced yellowing, and superficial soiling on the margins from past reading. The original period half-leather binding is geometrically rigid, though the leather on the spine is heavily worn, with losses and tears along the edges and at the bindings; the corners are rounded and worn. Overall condition: satisfactory plus.

Catalog ID: 13052x4-21-A-X