HENRYK

SIENKIEWICZ (1846– )  , Polish novelist, was born in 1846 at Wola Okrzeska near Lukow, in the province of Siedlce, Russian Poland . He studied philosophy at Warsaw University . His first work, a humorous novel entitled A Prophet in his own Country, appeared in 1872 . In 1876 Sienkiewicz visited America, and under the pseudonym of " Litwos, " contributed an account of his travels to the Gazeta Polska, a Warsaw newspaper . Thenceforward his talent as a writer of historical novels won rapid recognition, and his best-known romance, Quo Vadis? a study of Roman society under Nero, has been translated into more than thirty languages . Originally published in 1895, Quo Vadis? was first translated into English in 1896, and dramatized versions of it have been produced in England, the United States, France and Germany . Remarkable powers of realistic description, and a strong religious feeling which at times borders upon mysticism, characterize the best work of Sienkiewicz . Hardly inferior to Quo Vadis? in popularity, and superior in literary merit, is the trilogy of novels describing 17th-century society in Poland during the wars with the Cossacks, Turks and Swedes . This trilogy comprises Ogniem i mieczem (" With Fire and Sword, " London, 1890, 1892 and 1895), Potop (" The Deluge," Boston, Mass., 1891) and Pan Woxodjowski (" Pan Michael," London, 1893) . Among other very successful novels and collections of tales which have been translated into English are Bez Dogmatu (" Without Dogma, " London, 1893; Toronto, 1899), Janko muzykant: nowele (" Yanko the Musician and other Stories," Boston, Mass., 1893), Krzyzacy (" The Knight of the Cross, " numerous British and American versions), Hania (" Hania, " London, 1897) and Ta Trzecia (" The Third Woman," New York, 1898) . Sienkiewicz lived much in Cracow and Warsaw, and for a time edited the Warsaw newspaper Slowo; he also travelled in England, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Africa and the East, and published a description of his journeys in Africa . In 1905 he received the Nobel prize for literature .

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German edition of his collected works was published at Graz (1906, &c.), and his biography was written in Polish by P . Chmielowski (Lemberg, 1901) and J . Nowinski (Warsaw, 1901) .