Konopnicka in the family circle

Abstract

Review: Maria Konopnicka, Listy do synów i córek (Letters to sons and daughters), edited and prefaced by Lena Magnone, Warsaw – Institute of Literary Studies at Polish Academy of Sciences; Żarnowiec – Maria Konopnicka Museum, Warsaw 2010, pp.956. The author presents the history of Maria Konopnicka’s correspondence as well as the history of editing this part of the writer’s output. He shows the content of the reviewed volume including letters to the poet’s children and discusses its structure and editorial principles. The reviewer finds specific features of Konopnicka’s correspondence considering it on the background of epistolography of other writers. The letters of the most popular poet of the second half of the 19th century have their own specificity; seemingly without emotions they hide crucial information about the inner life of their authoress. They are also an irreplaceable source of knowledge of the history of her writing.