CZESŁAW MIŁOSZ: ABECADŁO [2001].

Description

We present the edition of “Abecadło” by Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) – poet, prose writer, essayist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1980), one of the most outstanding and influential Polish intellectuals of the 20th century. The publication was released in 2001 in Cracow by Wydawnictwo Literackie as part of the prestigious series “Collected Works of Czesław Miłosz.”

“Abecadło” is a consolidated, one-volume edition of two collections of sketches: “Milosz’s Abecadło” (1997) and “Another Abecadło” (1998), which appeared in 1996-1998 . This is a collection of 199 synthetic notes and slogans – from A to Z – in which Milosz shows not only specific people, but also notes historical events, stories and anecdotes about places and people, phenomena and abstract concepts (e.g. ambition, blasphemy, miraculousness, stupidity of the West) . The poet mentions in his sketches such figures as Krzysztof Baczynski, Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire, Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Stefan Kisielewski, Arthur Koestler, Jan Lechoń, Jacques Maritain, Zofia Nalkowska, Tomasz Zan and many others .

As Milosz himself wrote in “Footnote after years” (2001): “The Abecadło is instead of a novel, or something on the verge of a novel, in keeping with my constant search for a ‘more capacious form’.”. In his original plan, the author also planned to include the entry “Inaccuracy,” which he eventually removed from the collection .

It is part of the prestigious “Collected Works” series – the most complete edition of Milosz’s works, covering his poetry, prose, essays and translations. On the antiquarian market the first edition of “Milosz’s Abecadło” from 1997 appears sporadically . The copy presented here (a consolidated edition from 2001) is clean and preserved in very good condition. It is a must-have for a collector of Milosz’s works, a lover of his essays and a bibliophile looking for a representative edition of this unique “alphabet of memories” of the Nobel Prize winner.

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