LELEWEL Joachim - EMIGRATION LETTERS
edited and prefaced by Helena Więckowska
Volume I: 1831-1835 (Numbers 1-289)
Volume II: 1836-1841 (Nry 290-610)
Volume III: 1842-1848 (Nry 6111-947)
Volume IV: 1849-1861 ( Nry 948-1261)
Volume V: Appendix 1831-1860 (Nry 1262-1496)
Published by the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, Krakow 1948-56. Dimension 25.5x18cm; pages 411,412, 465, 524, 266. Publisher's booklet binding; slight rubbing and soiling of covers, minor losses. Characteristic fraying of side edges of pages. Pages clean.
Volume III- loss on the face of the cover.
The presented set is a monumental editorial work, constituting one of the most important sources for the history of the Great Emigration and the biography of the father of modern Polish historiography. Published under the prestigious banner of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, the edition is the fruit of the titanic research work of Dr. Helena Więckowska, who over the years consolidated Joachim Lelewel's Brussels correspondence scattered around the world.
The collector's value of this edition is based primarily on its uncompromising scholarly integrity - each letter has been accompanied by an exemplary critical apparatus, identifying the characters, political events and complexities of the scientific life of 19th-century Europe. From a bibliophilic perspective, this is a special position: it was published in the difficult post-war period, over a period of almost a decade, which makes the completion of all volumes in a uniform and good state of preservation a major antiquarian challenge today. As a publication from the last period of the PAU's autonomous activity (before its suspension by the communist authorities), it also carries an important symbolic charge, being a testimony to the continuity of the best traditions of Krakow editing.
For the collector of polonics and lover of history, "Letters in Exile" is not only a source of knowledge about Lelewel's contacts with the intellectual elite of the era - from Marx to Mazzini - but also a testimony to the fortitude of the Polish exile. This is an item of imperishable market and substantive value, an adornment of any serious humanist library and a valuable part of the collection of works on the history of political thought.
