Czesław Jankowski, Young Poland in Song: A Selection of the Finest Poems of Recent Times [1903]

Title: Young Poland in Song: A Selection of the Finest Poems of Recent Times.

Author: Czesław JANKOWSKI (1857–1929) [literary critic, poet, journalist, columnist, pen name Aramis, editor of *Kraj*, one of the sharpest literary critics of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries]

Publisher: Gebethner and Wolff, Warsaw

Year of publication: 1903. Second edition—thoroughly revised, expanded, and supplemented.

Format: 20 cm.

Volume: 430, [V] pp.

Binding: Period half-leather.

Who truly captured the moment of the birth of Young Poland as a literary phenomenon? Czesław Jankowski—a critic writing under the pseudonym Aramis, editor of the St. Petersburg-based *Kraj*, and a man known for his uncompromising, often scathing reviews — compiled this anthology in 1898 as the first serious survey of new Polish poetry of the late 19th century. The second edition from 1903, “thoroughly revised, expanded, and supplemented,” is already a panorama of the mature movement: in the five years between editions, Young Poland had managed to establish itself, publish its most important manifestos, and bring forth its leading figures. The anthology encompasses poetry from the entire spectrum of Young Poland—from the Decadents and Symbolists to the poets of the peasant and patriotic movements—offering a picture of the diversity and richness hidden beneath the collective name of the era. As the anthology’s editor, Jankowski made his selections from the perspective of a critic with distinct—and not always popular—aesthetic views: his assessments were sometimes harsh, and his omissions—significant. The volume itself thus became not only a document of the era but also an expression of a critical perspective on what in Polish poetry of the time was worth preserving and conveying to the reader. Published by Gebethner & Wolff—the largest and most prestigious publishing house in the Kingdom of Poland—the anthology attained the status of a canonical selection, available in every respectable intellectual library.

A piece with notes on the title page, in a period half-leather binding.

The second, expanded edition of the canonical anthology of Young Poland—a solid addition for collectors of modernist poetry and publications by Gebethner and Wolff.