Sigmund Krasinski Poems 1-3t. [1863 Brockhaus]

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Zygmunt Krasiński 1-3t.(publishing set)

Leipzig 1863
F. A. Brockhaus
(6) 263 (1), (6) 234, (6) 323 (1)s.
vol.1 o contemporary, vol.2-3 original publisher's(+ marbled page trims)
p. db some stains, cracks in the covers along the bend line
For. ca: 18x12 cm

"At the end of the nineteenth century it was noisy with the most varied eagles and hussars on the covers of Polish books Who wants, let him check in the pages of Waldemar Lysiak's Empireum. There was nothing strange about it, it was all about money. Works with patriotic symbols on their covers simply sold better and faster. Publishers who took advantage of this sometimes had funny mishaps. The nastiest one happened to Brockhaus, editor of the distinguished Leipzig Library of Polish Writers, which in the 1860s published Agaton Giller's post-Uprising memoirs A Prisoner's Journey in Stages to Siberia and the same author's four-volume The Year of 1863, as well as masterpieces of Romantic literature The first volumes in the series were furnished with a richly gilded and still sought-after cloth binding by collectors of so-called patriots, decorated with the coats of arms of Poland, Lithuania and - surely intended by the publisher - Ukraine. However, at the bottom, on the face of this binding, on the three-field shield of the Republic held by a winged figure, instead of the archangel Michael with a sword, we notice Saint George fighting a dragon, the coat of arms of partitioned Moscow. Among the works so decorated was, unfortunately, the three-volume (first collective, published in 1872 - 1873) edition of the works of Zygmunt Krasinski.
"Patriotic" binding of the Library of Polish Writers, used by Brockhaus as a sign promoting the entire publishing house, was quickly abandoned by the publisher, and most of the books encountered on the antiquarian market to this day, which were published in this series, already have a modest cherry-colored linen publisher's binding, devoid of any ornamentation. Quite a few of them are preserved in this form today, those with confused symbolism are much rarer." source: Jan Straus, Now Cover, Warsaw 2021, p. 105.