ZYGMUNT GLOGER: ENCYKLOPEDJA STAROPOLSKA ILUSTROWANA. TOM I-IV. COMPLETE (1900-1903)

Description

Gloger Zygmunt – Encyklopedja staropolska ilustrowana, vol. I-IV

First edition, Warsaw 1900-1903 | AP bibliophilic binding | Good condition
Complete four-volume set of the first edition of Zygmunt Gloger’s life’s work – one of the most important sources of knowledge about Old Polish culture, still indispensable in historical, ethnographic and philological research. The encyclopedia was published in Warsaw in 1900-1903 by the Printing House of P. Laskauer and W. Babicki: volume I (A-D, 316 p., 1900), volume II (D-K, 332 p., 1901), volume III (K-P, 350 p., 1902), volume IV (P-Ż, 523 p., 1903).
The work includes hundreds of entries and engravings devoted to almost every aspect of traditional Polish, Lithuanian and Ruthenian culture – arts, crafts, clothing, weaponry, construction, folk medicine, songs, rituals, proverbs and dialects. The motto of the work is the words of Gloger himself: “It is good to know foreign things, – one’s own, a duty.” As aptly summarized by the Polish Biographical Dictionary, the encyclopedia was “made with great effort by one man, and planned earlier as a team effort of many Polish scientific societies.” Work on it took more than thirty years.
The edition was published in the Russian partition and was censored – each volume bears the Tsar’s imprint: “Дозволено Цензурою. Варшава, 20 Ноября 1900 года” (Allowed by censorship. Warsaw, November 20, 1900). This historical mark of tsarist control makes the copy a witness of the era and gives it an additional documentary dimension. Book blocks preserved in good condition. The binding has minor surface flaws – condition of the book blocks good. The copy was hand-bound in an exclusive natural leather binding by the Polish Antiquarian Bookbindery. Re-editions of the encyclopedia were not published until 1972-1974 by Wiedzy Powszechna – the first edition from the turn of the century remains an object sought after by collectors and researchers.
An item for historians, ethnographers, collectors of Polish publications of the turn of the 20th century and bibliophiles seeking monumental works of documented scientific and historical value.

3112×1-24-A-Z