Book Description

Excerpt from Memoirs of the Countess Cosel Joseph J. Kraszewski was born in Russian Poland in 1812. He came of a noble and once wealthy family. His parents quitting their estates during the war between France and Russia, the boy was left in the care of his grandparents on his mothers side. From these he first acquired a taste for literature and art. In his eleventh year, Kraszewski was sent to the College at Biala, where he remained until 1826. He then entered the College at Lublin, and in 1829 he proceeded to the University of Wilno, where he gave his attention principally to the study of languages, especially of Old Slavonic, Russian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. He spent much of his time in reading old documents and manuscripts, and the materials thus gathered he subsequently utilized in his historical romances and monographs. The novel had at this period begun to be the most popular form of literary expression in Western Europe. Kraszewski read and admired the works of Le Sage, Voltaire, Jean Paul, Hoffmann, and even Washington Irving. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.