Polihymnia: The Beauty of Contemporary Poetry for Lovers of Polish Literature. Volume IV. A Selection of Writings by Adam Mickiewicz [1827] [First edition of “Ode to Youth”]

Lviv, 1827. Printed by Piotr Piller. 12x19.5 cm, 179 pages, half-leather bookbinder’s binding, with a fragment of the spine from another binding glued to the spine. Good condition (scuffing on the binding, an ex libris by Jarosław Doliński, a handwritten note pasted on the endpaper with information about the first edition of “Ode to Youth,” ownership signatures, minor stains on a few pages).

Volume IV (of six published) of an anthology of poems by Polish poets, edited by Jan Julian Szczepański (1796–1869), a philologist, translator, Polish language teacher, and textbook author, entirely devoted to the works of Adam Mickiewicz. It contains a selection of his writings, including excerpts from “Dziady,” ballads, sonnets, and shorter works, as well as the first printed edition of “Ode to Youth, ” which had previously circulated in handwritten copies. The text was published without Mickiewicz’s knowledge or consent, most likely based on one of the circulating copies.