APOLINARY ZAGÓRSKI: SCIENTIFIC STORYTELLING. VOL. I-II IN 1 VOL. [1859]

Description

We present the first posthumous edition of “Gawęd naukowy” by Apolinary Zagorski – one of the most prominent Polish popularizers of science of the 19th century. The publication was published in 1859 by the Jan Psurski Printing House in Warsaw, already after the premature death of the author, who died of tuberculosis at the age of only 28.

Apolinary Zagorski (1830-1858) was an extremely talented self-taught man. He had no formal education, served in the Russian army for five years (participating in the Hungarian campaign of 1849), and yet – thanks to his passion and erudition – he was recognized by the Warsaw circle of scientists and writers . From 1856 he collaborated with “Gazeta Warszawska” and “Biblioteka Warszawska”, for which he wrote articles on cosmology and the history of science.

His “Scientific Storytelling” is a collection of essays in the natural sciences – from astronomy and cosmology, to zoology and physiology, to phrenology (the now-unrecognized theory of the study of the skull). The book is written in an accessible, storytelling format, typical of 19th-century popularization of knowledge, and was intended to introduce the Polish reader to the latest scientific discoveries of the era. The edition was accompanied by a portrait of the author and a biography written by Jozef Ignacy Kraszewski himself, one of Poland’s most prominent writers.

The title of Volume II announces news, among other things, from phrenology – a pseudo-science that was very popular in the 19th century, which assumed that a person’s character traits and intellectual predispositions could be determined from the shape of the skull. Today it is an interesting testimony to the history of scientific thought.

It appears sporadically on the antiquarian market. The presented copy contains both volumes in a single volume, which is particularly valuable for a collector.

13948-19-C-W