Twentieth-century historians of Polish literature (e.g. Henryk Markiewicz and Grażyna Borkowska) unanimously agree that Waleria Marrené-Morzkowska was at best a second-rank writer. It seems that such negative opinions are founded, fi rst of all, on the critics’ low view of her favourite genre, the popular romance; and secondly on a critical survey of her work written in 1966 by Irena Wyczańska for a multivolume Guide to Polish Literature of the 19th and 20th Century (Obraz literatury polskiej XIX i XX wieku). This article attempts to revise the established view of her fiction by analyzing some of works, i.e. two novels, Leonora’s Husband (Mąż Leonory, 1883) and The Little Blue Book (Błękitna książeczka, 1876), and the short story A Duplex Woman (Dwoista, 1889). This reappraisal draws on the favourable assessments of her work of the first generation of her readers, among them writer Teodor Jeske-Choiński, literary historian Henryk Galle and Piotr Chmielowski, a leading literary scholar of the late 19th century. In their view her work rose above the level of run-of-the-mill romances and didactic fi ction thanks to her skill in combining the conventions of the realist novel with plots of popular romance.

This paper examines the coverage of women’s health issues, preventive care and prophylaxis in 19th-century Polish popular medical periodicals, in particular Dziennik Zdrowia dla Wszystkich Stanów [ Journal of Health for all Social Classes] (1801–1802), Przyjaciel Zdrowia [ Health’s Friend] (1861–1863), Zdrowie [ Health] (1877/78–1880), and Lekarz [ The Physician] (1903/04–1904/05). The authors of this study try to find an answer to the question whether those periodicals did succeed in giving women’s health issues the rank and status warranted by their significance.

This article outlines the rise and development of popular science periodicals in Poland from the 18th century until 1939. Their history begins in 1758 with the publication of Nowe Wiadomości Ekonomiczne i Uczone [Latest Economic and Learned News]. Our corpus includes 128 periodicals representing a great diversity of formats and content.

This article is historical and philosophical in nature. Its purpose is to outline the most important trends and problems in the 19th-century Spanish philosophy. This philosophy has not yet been the subject of deeper analyses, especially in Polish literature on the subject. This is a major oversight, because the nineteenth century is the time of the impressive growth of modern social, political, legal, moral and intelectual structures in Spain. An important role in their development was played by Spanish philosophers and their reception of modern European philosophy and science. The reception was accompanied by numerous disputes and discussions about the condition of the Spanish culture and its possible development directions.

Maria Hagen-Schwerin was a 19th-century novelist and poet. She was a prolific author of popular romances with aristocratic heroes and plots that revolve around love and marriage in high society. However, what kept Mrs Hagen in the public eye was her unconventional life style, her debts and an unending string of affairs whose sensational twists eclipsed anything that could be found her polite fiction. Her feuds, especially with another controversial woman of the fin-de- siècle Cracow, the playwright and novelist Gabriela Zapolska, were the talk of the town. Maria Hagen descended, on her father's side from a long line of nobles (Łoś) and on her mother's side from one of Cracow's wealthiest merchant families (Kirchmayer). Her elder brother Wincenty Łoś was an acclaimed writer and art collector. It is no exaggeration to say that Maria Hagen was heir to a family legacy of great achievements and of great scandals, too, in politics as well as in economic and social life. Some of her ancestors also ventured into literature thus building a family tradition which continued for three centuries. Maria Hagen picked up that thread and became a successful writer in her day. Now she belongs to that large category of writers once famous, but quickly forgotten. The problem lies not in the fact that nobody reads her books, but that her work has attracted virtually no attention from students of nineteenth-century literature and culture, and, astonishingly enough, no critical study of her work has been written for over 150 years since her death.

Polish popular-science periodicals have not yet been researched in terms of their overall graphic design and layout. Undertaking an in-depth assessment of this particular aspect was intended to follow the development of graphic design in the periodicals published on the Polish lands throughout the period spanning 1758–1939, with a view to identifying the most characteristic components that stood for overall visual appeal of specific publications, whilst pondering overall aesthetic and educational value of diverse illustrative material they offered to their readership. The article presents an outline of research into the graphic design of fifty such periodicals, highly representative of a popular-science genre. Comprehensive research results along with the accompanying factual material and tabularised data, which might well prove of some consequence in further comparative research, are available in a book format.

The illustrated weekly Wędrowiec (The Wanderer), published in 1863–1906, certainly lived up to its programmatic title and published a great deal of material on geography, history of culture and travels abroad. This article discusses the texts that dealt with the ancient history of the Middle East.

This article examines three aborted publishing projects involving popular science magazines from the early 19th century, two of them in Cracow, one in Kalisz. Their history has been reconstructed thanks to the publishers' prospectuses found in collections of the Jagiellonian Library.

Father Marceli Dziurzyński (1861–1945) was a noted publisher and editor of a number of magazines, mainly for the country people. The most successful of them was Nowy Dzwonek (The New Hand Bell) that appeared continually from 1892, under altered names and at various intervals, until 1932. This article surveys the first phase of its history and its thematic range (religion, Polish history, current events in Poland and abroad, stories and poems). In that period the magazine also carried a number of supplements.