Henryk Sienkiewicz

[Jacob]

Henryk Sienkiewicz (Sin-KAY-vitch), Polish writer and journalist (1846-1916), winner of the 1905 Nobel Prize for "outstanding merits as an epic writer." Some readers will be familiar with his novel Quo Vadis, but in Poland he is most famous for his epic trilogy (called "The Trilogy") of historical novels set in 17th-Century Poland. Much of his work was published in the US by Hippocrene Books, but most of it is out of print and very hard to find (unless you have a good library and/or a lot of money)

Novels
-The Trilogy
--1. With Fire and Sword
--2. The Deluge (2 vols.)
--3. Fire in the Steppe
-The Teutonic Knights (also called "The Knights of the Cross")
-Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero
-On the Field of Glory
-In Desert and Wilderness
-The Polaniecki Family
-Without Dogma
-Vortices

Short fiction
-Charcoal Sketches and Other Tales
-"The Little Trilogy"
-Yanko the Musician and Other Stories

Other works
See here

[Jacob]

I've read "With Fire and Sword," which I intend to re-read next year with the rest of the Trilogy. I also have "Charcoal Sketches and Other Tales."

[Jessica]

Have never heard of him. I'm not a great fan of epic novels, so maybe he's not right for me (I prefer Knut Hamsun's early novels to his later epic ones, for ex.. I suppose I could give his short fiction a try.

[Jacob]

Yeah, when I say epic, I do mean epic. The Trilogy is close to 4000 pages long (The Deluge is 1800 pages, in 2 volumes, so calling it "The Trilogy" is a bit of a stretch), and most of his other novels are fairly long. I don't know what his short fiction is like yet, but I'll probably get to "Charcoal Sketches" (and "The Little Trilogy," if I can find it) before I tackle The Trilogy again.