Teodor Tomasz Jeż, The Works of Teodor Tomasz Jeż, in the First Collected Edition. Volumes I–IV. [1876]

Title: The Works of Teodor Tomasz Jeż in Their First Collected Edition. Volumes I–IV.

Author: Teodor Tomasz Jeż, born Zygmunt Miłkowski (1824–1915) [novelist, journalist, and independence activist; founder of the Polish League; alongside Kraszewski, the most prolific Polish prose writer of the 19th century].

Publisher: Lviv–Warsaw, A. J. O. Rogosz; M. Glücksberg.

Year of publication: 1876.

Format: 23 cm.

Volume: Vol. I: [6], 415 pp.; Vol. II: 417 pp.; Vol. III: 377 pp.; Vol. IV: 350 pp.

Binding: Half-leather binding (uniform, signed by the bookbinder).

The first collected edition of Teodor Tomasz Jeż’s writings, prepared jointly by the Lviv-based publishing house of A. J. O. Rogosz and the Warsaw bookstore of Michał Glücksberg—that is, publishers operating on both sides of the partition cordon. This set of four volumes includes the writer’s early and mature prose from the years of his greatest popularity. Jeż was one of the most widely read authors of his era. His novels combined historical and patriotic themes with a vivid portrayal of life among the peoples of the Balkans, Rus, and the Carpathians—regions the writer knew firsthand. This body of work influenced the younger generation: Bolesław Prus drew inspiration from his novel *Ci i tamci* (“These and Those”), and Jeż himself, as a critic, discovered the talent of Jan Kasprowicz. He published his fiction under the pseudonym Teodor Tomasz Jeż, and his political journalism under his own name.

Zygmunt Miłkowski was born in 1824 in Saracea, Podolia. In 1848, he fought in General Józef Wysocki’s Polish Legion in Hungary, and during the January Uprising, he commanded a unit. For several decades, he was active in exile as a journalist and pro-independence politician. He advocated for a program of “active defense” and the creation of a National Treasury. In 1887, he founded the Polish League in Switzerland, the predecessor of the National League. He left behind more than 60 novels, including *Wasyla Hołuba*, *Uskoki*, *Rycerz chrześcijański*, and *Za gwiazdą przewodnią*, as well as his memoirs, *Od kolebki przez życie*. In 1869, he became a foreign member of the Serbian Learned Society. He died on January 11, 1915, in Lausanne. The Sejm of the Republic of Poland declared him the patron of the year 2024.

Provenance: On the front endpaper of each of the four volumes is a printed bookbinder’s stamp reading “O. Michałowski Bookbinder, 10 Miodowa St., Opposite the District Court.” - The set was bound in a single Warsaw workshop on Miodowa Street. No seals or ownership inscriptions are present.

This is the first collected edition of Jeż’s works, a set of four volumes in uniform, signed bindings by a Warsaw bookbinder. A must-have for collectors of 19th-century Polish prose, scholars of literature and the independence movement, and enthusiasts of historic Warsaw bookbinding.

The blocks of all four volumes are compact, tight, and stable; the original stitching holds firmly, the pages are even, with no loose sheets. The paper is heavyweight, clean, and bright, free of watermarks, ripples, and creases, with minimal natural spots, discoloration, and isolated foxing. There are no underlines in the text. The half-leather bindings are stiff and clean, with no cracks in the hinges or missing leather; the edges and corners of the covers remain sharp; the bookbinder’s stamps are intact.

Catalog ID: 6611x1-23-A-Z