Maurycy and Kamil Mochnacki, The Works of Maurycy Mochnacki, Vol. I [1863]

Title: The Works of Maurycy Mochnacki. Volume I.

Authors: Maurycy and Kamil Mochnacki

Publisher: Published by Jan Konstanty Żupański’s Bookstore / Printed with M. Zoern’s typefaces, Poznań

Year of Publication: 1863. Series: The Only Authorized Edition, Published with the Author’s Mother’s Consent.

Format: 22 cm.

Volume: portrait, IX, 388 pp.

Binding: Period half-leather.

In 1863, while the January Uprising was underway in the Kingdom of Poland, Jan Konstanty Żupański’s Poznań publishing house began publishing a collected edition of Maurycy Mochnacki’s writings, bearing the inscription "The only authorized edition, published with the knowledge of the author’s mother." The complete set, comprising four volumes of a planned five-volume series, included “The Uprising of the Polish Nation in 1830 and 1831” and “Miscellaneous Writings: The Post-Revolutionary Period”; the first volume presented here contains “Letters by Maurycy Mochnacki and his brother Kamil, who left for France with the Polish army in 1831, written from Paris, Metz, and Avignon to their parents in Galicia.” This correspondence, written immediately after the defeat of the November Uprising, documents the first months of the Great Emigration as seen from the inside: the moods of the refugees, their living conditions, and political divisions. The book was printed using typefaces from M. Zoern’s workshop in Poznań, and the volume opens with a portrait of the critic. It is worth noting that the textual basis of this edition itself has raised concerns among scholars—the literature on the subject points to alterations in the first edition of the Mochnacki brothers’ letters in the form of typographical errors as well as unauthorized corrections and additions to the original text.

Born on September 13, 1803, in Bojańcu near Żółkiew, Maurycy Mochnacki was the son of Bazyle, a lawyer and participant in the Kościuszko Uprising, and Maria née Pągowska; He was educated at the Warsaw Lyceum and subsequently studied law at the University of Warsaw. As a literary, theatrical, and music critic, as well as a journalist, he became one of the leading theorists of Polish Romanticism, and his treatise “On Polish Literature in the 19th Century” (1830) is considered one of the key programmatic texts of the era. He fought as a private in the November Uprising; after its defeat, he emigrated to France and died of tuberculosis in Auxerre on December 20, 1834, at the age of thirty-one. He was also a renowned pianist who gave charity concerts while in exile—Jan Lechoń commemorated his playing in the poem “Mochnacki.” The co-author of the letters, his younger brother Kamil (1806–1833)—a cadet at the Officer Cadet School in Warsaw and a participant in the November Uprising—also served in the 1831 campaign; Maurycy’s ashes were brought back to Poland and interred at the Powązki Military Cemetery in November 2021, during a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The provenance of this piece remains unknown—the volume is free of old institutional stamps and later underlinings in the text.

An item of interest to scholars of Polish Romanticism and the Great Emigration, collectors of insurgent memorabilia, and enthusiasts of Jan Konstanty Żupański’s publications.

The block is compact and tightly bound; the original stitching firmly holds the cover, with no loose pages. The paper bears a natural patina of age: scattered spots, acid discoloration, and superficial soiling on the margins from past page-turning. The first two pages, including the frontispiece with a portrait, feature old, conservative edge repairs; no text or illustration is missing; the frontispiece portrait is legible and distinct. A period half-leather binding, fully rigid and stable, with slight scuffing of the leather on the spine and minor wear on the paper at the edges of the board.

Catalog ID: 9824x1-22-A-Z