The Memoirs of Jeremiah Curtin

The fascinating world travels of a master linguist

Jeremiah Curtin

If you recognize the name Jeremiah Curtin, chances are you are a reader of Polish or Russian literature. Curtin was the foremost English translator of Polish literature in the 19th century, most notably the works of Henryk Sienkiewicz, and he also translated a few Russian novels. Curtin’s life, however, was much more adventurous than that of a typical bookworm, as evidenced by this fascinating autobiography. Published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in 1940, The Memoirs of Jeremiah Curtin covers the full extent of this remarkable man’s life, from his birth in 1835 to just a few months prior to his death in 1906.

Born in Detroit, Curtin was raised on a farm in Greendale, Wisconsin (now suburban Milwaukee). Rather than work the family farm, young Curtin decided to pursue a first-class education. In a very short time, he learned enough Greek and Latin to get into Harvard. From there, he began learning languages at an alarming rate. Over the course of the book, Curtin claims a facility in over 60 languages, including almost all the national languages of Europe, the major languages of Asia, and many off-the-beaten-path tongues such as Mingrelian, Abkhasian, Seneca, Wintu, Bengalese, Maya, Welsh, and Buriat. Even if Curtin only possessed a PhD-level mastery of three languages—English, Russian, and Polish—he seems to have studied the rest well enough to be able to read texts, translate stories, and/or converse with native speakers.

Curtin’s linguistic prowess led him to a multifaceted globetrotting career as a diplomat in Russia, a translator of literature, an ethnographer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and an independent scholar who traveled the world gathering the myths and folklore of Indigenous cultures. Among his acquaintances he lists Longfellow, Emerson, Thoreau, Tolstoy, Theodore Roosevelt, Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz, and Tsar Alexander II of Russia. On multiple transoceanic voyages, Curtin traveled through dozens of nations, including Ireland, Guatemala, Egypt, Japan, and the Balkans. At times he describes lavish banquets where he is hailed as a visiting dignitary. In more austere settings, however, he is forced to sleep with livestock in squalid, flea-infested hovels.

This book offers a fascinating look at a period in time when a Harvard education, some letters of introduction, and unbridled arrogance could open just about any door. Curtin did not have an ounce of humility in his body, which actually makes his memoirs more enjoyable. His self-aggrandizing storytelling calls to mind the legendary yarn-spinner Baron Munchausen or the 1960s cartoon character Commander McBragg. Curtin no doubt exaggerates his accomplishments, and there was a shadier side to the man that is not revealed in these pages. Reading between the lines one can tell, for example, that Curtin is essentially stalking Sienkiewicz, upon whose back he made his living. Still, Curtin did travel the world, met many interesting people, and studied the language and history of multiple world cultures. You may not end up liking the guy, but this lively and fascinating travelogue contains nary a dull moment in its entire 900 page length.

The Memoirs of Jeremiah Curtin were posthumously compiled by his widow Alma Cardell Curtin, who accompanied him on all his travels and served as his assistant and secretary. Some historians assert that these memoirs are based more on her own diaries than on his. Alma never published any writings under her own name, however, so Jeremiah is still the author of record. As she wished, this is ostensibly his autobiography, even if ghost-written. No doubt Mr. Curtin could not have accomplished all he did without the help of Mrs. Curtin, and she is to be commended for crafting such an engrossing narrative of his life.
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Children of the Soil by Henryk Sienkiewicz

70 grueling chapters on love and marriage

Henryk Sienkiewicz

The novels of Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz, winner of the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature, generally fall into two categories. First there are his historical epics, for which he is best known to English-language readers. Among these include Quo Vadis, set in ancient Rome, and his trilogy of Polish war novels: With Fire and Sword, The Deluge, and Pan Michael. Secondly, we have his novels of modern Poland, a category that includes Children of the Soil, published in 1894. Although I consider myself a fan of Sienkiewicz, this is the worst work of his that I’ve ever read. This grueling examination of love and marriage proceeds at a sluggish pace without delivering any profound insight to justify its overly protracted length.

Warsaw businessman Stanislav Polanyetski travels to a country estate in order to collect a debt from his distant relative, Pan Plavitski. Polanyetski, commonly referred to in the text as Pan Stas, vaguely remembers playing on this farm as a child with Plavitski’s daughter Marynia. When he meets Marynia again, he finds that she has grown into an attractive woman. He immediately realizes that he is at an age where he should be thinking about taking a wife, and that Marynia would make a fine one. Through a stupid miscommunication, however, Stas and Marynia end up offending rather than courting one another. Disgruntled at his thwarted romantic dreams, Stas then makes a bonehead business transaction that puts the Plavitskis’ estate in jeopardy, a mistake which he must then spend many chapters trying to rectify. This faux pas feels like a rom-com contrivance designed to put obstacles in the way of a couple that are inevitably meant to be together. Sienkiewicz then introduces a dying child into the story as another contrivance to bring the two closer. What’s worse, upon winning Marynia’s love, Stas immediately starts flirting with other women, making him a difficult protagonist to sympathize with. After a while, even Sienkiewicz seems to grow tired of Stas and Marynia and feels the need to introduce a younger couple whose tortured romance predominates the second half of the book. A large ensemble cast of characters, many of whom feel unnecessary, are on hand to represent varied attitudes toward marriage, adultery, bachelorhood, spinsterhood, widowhood, etc.

One of the most disappointing things about this novel is its title. “Children of the Soil,” coupled with the book’s extensive length, would lead one to believe that this is an agricultural epic, like Knut Hamsun’s Growth of the Soil, for example, or Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth. There is nary a peasant in sight here, however. The characters in this book may own country homes and buy and sell fields and forests, but none of them have ever picked up a shovel in their lives. This is strictly a book about rich people’s problems. Over the course of the novel it becomes exhausting to listen to these characters complain about their fluctuating incomes when their idea of destitution is being excluded from a certain social circle.

In English translation, this novel amounts to about 675 tightly packed pages, comprising 70 mostly lengthy chapters. I’ve read very long books before, including a few by Sienkiewicz. He may have seen this as his Anna Karenina, but there is nothing in the story to merit the exorbitant length of this text. Every chapter is overly stretched out and padded with unnecessary filler, making it feel like a colossal waste of time. Those wishing to read one of Sienkiewicz’s works on modern Poland would be better off going with In Vain or Without Dogma. The latter is pretty good, while the former is rather mediocre but certainly better than Children of the Soil.
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In Desert and Wilderness by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Awfully slow for an adventure novel, no matter how old you are
In Desert and Wilderness, published in 1911, is a novel by Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz, winner of the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature. The story takes place in northeastern Africa during the 1880s. Though Sienkiewicz wrote other historical adventure novels, In Desert and Wilderness is notable for being the only book he wrote that is intended for a young audience.

Fourteen-year-old Polish boy Stanislas (Stas) Tarkowski and eight-year-old English girl Nel Rawlinson live in Port Said, Egypt, where their widower fathers work as engineers for the Suez Canal. Because of the close friendship between their dads, Stas and Nel are raised almost as brother and sister. When their fathers are called away for various engineering projects, the kids are left at home in the hands of trusted servants. At this period in Africa’s history, a Muslim preacher known as the Mahdi has incited a rebellion against British rule. While the dads are away, Stas and Nel are kidnapped by Arabs who intend to exchange the children for prisoners held by the British. The kidnappers hope to take their little hostages as an offering to the Mahdi in Khartoum. The children, however, set out to escape their captors and undertake an arduous journey to reunite with their fathers.

Though this book may be intended for children, in the typical fashion of a century ago it is in no way dumbed-down as is so much young adult literature published today. Even grown-ups will have trouble keeping up with the intricate political history of Egypt and the Sudan. The series of events that leads to the kidnapping is quite convoluted and tests the patience of readers of all ages. When the captors and captives finally hit the road, it often reads less like a novel than an atlas, each sentence crammed with exotic place names. For a children’s story, there’s an awful lot of realistic violence that’s more suited to grown-up reading. On the other hand, adults won’t appreciate the more fairy tale aspects of the story, in which whatever the children need to survive miraculously falls right into their laps. The book contains some quite thrilling scenes, most involving encounters with wildlife, but they are few and far between, interspersed among long trudges through the desert.

Something else that dulls the excitement of this wilderness survival tale is the fact that the children are accompanied by servants throughout their ordeal. Though the kids show some ingenuity at times, and Stas is good with a rifle, the servants do much of the daily work required to keep them alive. When the children receive help from African characters, it’s never just because the Africans are good people who want to help two kids find their way home, but rather because they are silly, superstitious rubes who view the white kids as gods or benevolent spirits. The whole book is written as a justification of European rule in Africa, where the blacks would be lost without the guidance and governance of the whites.

The story has little to offer girls, as Nel mostly serves as the damsel in distress to Stas’s knight in shining armor. To anyone who has ever read a book by Sienkiewicz, the ending is a foregone conclusion. Adults who read this novel as children may have fond memories of three or four important scenes, but the book is 47 chapters long, and most of those chapters are a bore. Sienkiewicz is a talented writer, so In Desert and Wilderness is not without some literary merit, but it counts among his worst works.
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Without Dogma by Henryk Sienkiewicz

The heartache of skepticism
Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz, winner of the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature, is best known for his romantic historical novels, like his grandiose trilogy on the Polish military (With Fire and Sword, The Deluge, and Pan Michael) or his epic of ancient Rome, Quo Vadis. Sienkiewicz’s novel Without Dogma, published in 1891, is a deliberate departure from the trilogy that made him famous. Not only is it free of action and violence, it can also be characterized as a romance novel, or at least a novel of manners. Without Dogma also differs from typical Sienkiewicz fare in that it is set in the modern world and written in a style that, while it probably couldn’t be called realism, is nevertheless more realistic than any other work of his that I’ve read.

The story takes place in the 1880s and is written in the form of a diary. The narrator, Leon Ploszowski, is a young Pole of a wealthy family. Rich enough not to require a career, he has found no calling in life. Despite his education, intelligence, and refinement, he is a “genius without portfolio.” When the novel opens, he and his father are living in Rome, but they own an estate a few miles outside of Warsaw, called Ploszow, which is managed by Leon’s aunt. On a visit back to this ancestral home, Leon reconnects with a cousin he has not seen since childhood. The two fall in love, and their marriage becomes a foregone conclusion to their family, their friends, and even themselves. The relationship falls apart, however, when, through his own indecisiveness, his grief over the death of his father, and his meeting of another woman in Rome, Leon fails to commit to matrimony with Aniela. He soon learns to regret this mistake and spends the rest of the book trying to win back the love of his life.

The title of the book refers to the fact that Leon is an agnostic with no faith or steadfast moral principles to guide him through life. Anyone who is familiar with this author’s work knows that Sienkiewicz was a devout Catholic, so this is certainly no autobiographical novel. Here his protagonist is not a hero or a role model, but rather a cautionary embodiment of societal ills. Leon represents the tendency of indecision and paralyzing self-criticism that Sienkiewicz feels is plaguing modern man after having turned his back on traditional faith and values. Nevertheless, Sienkiewicz portrays Leon sympathetically, doesn’t resort to dogmatic proselytizing, and doesn’t lay the social criticism on too thick.

Though I have more in common philosophically with Leon than with Sienkiewicz, I still found Without Dogma a very compelling and insightful read. I was mostly ambivalent towards the love story, but I really enjoyed Leon’s interior dialogue. Though the “modern world” has changed considerably since the 1880s, much of what Sienkiewicz has to say here about modern man feeling lost amid a rudderless life devoid of philosophy, crippled by self-consciousness, still rings true. Like any novel of the 19th century, the love story feels antiquated and overwrought at times. What were considered acceptable courtship tactics back then often come across as stalking today. Yet, even when the reader feels that Leon is getting kind of creepy, there’s a sense that Sienkiewicz knows he’s creepy too, and is deliberately depicting him as unhinged. It’s a surprisingly naturalistic psychological portrayal from this author who is recognized as a paragon of romanticism.

I enjoy Sienkiewicz’s military epics, but I really liked this book as well. It is much better than another of his novels set in modern Poland, 1899’s In Vain. One caveat: Without Dogma is a very long book. I never found it boring, however, and if you pace yourself, it really grows on you.
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Hania by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Assorted selections from the master’s sketchbook
Hania is the title of an 1876 novella by Nobel Prize-winning Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz. It is also the name of a collection of short fiction by Sienkiewicz published in English in 1897. As is usually the case with Sienkiewicz’s works, the ten short stories included in the collection were translated by Jeremiah Curtin. The selections are a mixed bag featuring subject matter that readers of Sienkiewicz’s better-known novels will find familiar. In fact, in some cases the pieces included here served as preliminary sketches for the author’s greatest novels.

The title selection, “Hania,” is an autobiographical story, although likely embellished with Sienkiewicz’s Romantic flair. When an old family servant dies, Sienkiewicz assumes responsibility for the man’s granddaughter by welcoming her as a sister into the family. As time goes on, however, his feelings for her become more than brotherly. This story starts out as a very interesting glimpse into the privileges and obligations of a Polish nobleman. As the plot progresses, however, Sienkiewicz’s picture of himself becomes more unflattering as he behaves in stupid and petty ways. The story ends on an unsatisfying note of blunt realism uncharacteristic of the author.

A more successful effort is “Tartar Captivity,” a violent piece of historical fiction about a 17th-century impoverished noble who goes off to fight the Tartars in the Ukraine. This piece is a worthy precursor to Sienkiewicz’s famous trilogy of With Fire and Sword, The Deluge, and Pan Michael. Another good selection is the short story “The Organist of Ponikla” which eschews historical grandeur in favor of a more personal, intimate focus. “Lux in Tenebris Lucet” is another pretty good offering with a solemn atmosphere and poignant plot, but it settles for a rather easy religious ending. The volume closes with “That Third Woman,” an enjoyable comic piece about an artist who finds fame and fortune overnight, and the effect his newfound notoriety has on his love life.

The less successful entries include “Let Us Follow Him,” a rather dull retelling of the crucifixion of Christ that can be seen as a preliminary work to Sienkiewicz’s religious opus Quo Vadis. “Be Thou Blessed” is a blessedly brief Hindu fable that gratifies the Romantic’s taste for the exotic. “At the Source” and “On the Bright Shore” are both dreary romances which annoy with their unlikable characters and overdramatic touches. Lastly, in “Charcoal Sketches,” a municipal functionary schemes to force a rival into military conscription in order to make advances to the man’s wife. Though Sienkiewicz tries to be funny by satirizing corruption at various levels of government, the broad humor never gels with the unpleasant events, and the whole thing just comes across as mean-spirited and overdone.

Though the tone of these works varies from dreary fatalism to lighthearted comedy, Sienkiewicz’s devotion to Romanticism is evident throughout, sometimes to the point of detriment to the stories he’s telling. This is a long book, and over its course you start to feel bogged down with the pomposity of classical literary references, tortured artists, and inflexible codes of honor. When he starts to make fun of such pretensions in “That Third Woman,” it’s quite a relief, but that’s the last stop on an exhausting trip. Overall, there’s no denying that these short pieces are not as strong as Sienkiewicz’s long-form masterpieces. Only the most diehard of Sienkiewicz fans, seeking to consume his complete works, need bother with this collection.

Stories in this collection

Hania (includes a Prologue to Hania: The Old Servant) 

Tartar Captivity 

Let Us Follow Him

Be Thou Blessed 

At the Source 

Charcoal Sketches 

The Organist of Ponikla

Lux in Tenebris Lucet 

On the Bright Shore 

That Third Woman

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In Vain by Henryk Sienkiewicz

An inauspicious debut
According to the brief introduction by translator Jeremiah Curtin, In Vain was the first published novel by Nobel Laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz, written when he was only 18 years old. Originally published in 1876 under the Polish title of Na marne, Curtin’s English edition did not come out until 1899, after Sienkiewicz had achieved some worldwide renown as the author of romantic epics like Quo Vadis and “The Trilogy” (With Fire and Sword, The Deluge, and Pan Wolodyjowski). In Vain is no epic, but it is definitely romantic, in the 19th-century sense of the word. Curtin describes the book as a portrait of student life, and that’s certainly how it starts out, but not how it ends.

A young man named Yosef Shvarts (Curtin always opts for phonetic spellings of Polish proper nouns) arrives in Kiev to attend school. He runs into an old hometown friend, Gustav, and the two decide to room together. Yosef is the son of a blacksmith, so although he is lucky to be able to attend school, money is scarce and he must live frugally. The two friends hang out at a student club with a group of schoolmates who share their bohemian lifestyle. Gustav is in love with Helena, an attractive widow who has been traumatized by the death of her husband and child. Upon meeting Yosef, however, she immediately becomes obsessed with him because he reminds her of her deceased husband. Needless to say, this doesn’t sit well with Gustav and causes a great deal of tension between the two roommates.

Meanwhile, Yosef falls in love with science and studies to become a doctor, but that element of the narrative is neglected in favor of the love story. The novel harkens back to an earlier and far more conservative age when kissing a woman was as good as a marriage proposal (although at times it’s hinted, ever so subtly, that there’s more than just kissing going on). Men of a certain class were expected to conduct themselves honorably in all things, like the knights of old. To play games with a woman’s virtue would spell the end of one’s reputation as a gentleman. Under such restrictive conventions of romance, Yosef finds himself in a quandary between love and duty.

The first half of the book is very engaging. The depiction of student life in Kiev is interesting, and the characters and their relationships are intriguing. Eventually, however, the novel regresses into a rather formulaic he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not story, reminiscent of some of the fairy tale romances that are more at home in Sienkiewicz’s historical epics. The character of Augustinovich, a friend and confidant of Yosef’s, even resembles The Trilogy’s Falstaffian character Pan Zagloba in his sense of humor, his gregariousness, and his propensity for meddling in others’ love lives.

In Vain is not a terrible book, but it may be the worst piece of work I’ve ever read from this excellent author. Only diehard fans of Sienkiewicz should give this one a try.
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Lillian Morris and Other Stories by Henryk Sienkiewicz

A Polish perspective on the American West

Lillian Morris and Other Stories is a collection of works by Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz, winner of the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature. The volume contains a novel of about 150 pages, entitled Lillian Morris, and three short stories, each of 50 pages or less. It’s unclear if these works were ever published together in Polish. The English-language edition, consisting of translations by Jeremiah Curtin, was published in 1894. Two of the works, including Lillian Morris, are set in the American West, while one short story is set in Poland and another in Spain.

From 1876 to 1878 Sienkiewicz lived in America, mostly in California. During those years he explored the West, traveling through mountains and deserts and visiting mining camps and Native American villages. In a brief introduction to Lillian Morris, Sienkiewicz explains that the novel is based on a tale related to him over a campfire in the Santa Lucia Range. The narrator is Captain Ralph, a Polish immigrant charged with leading a wagon train from the East Coast to California. Along the way he meets Lillian Morris, a young woman traveling alone, and falls in love with her. Sienkiewicz’s literary style and the distinctly American subject matter make for a curious mix. At first his European Romanticism overpowers the narrative, resulting in a familiar two-lovers-in-a-Garden-of-Eden story that just happens to take place on the Great Plains. Once Sienkiewicz starts to get into the nitty gritty of Indian relations and the harsh reality of traversing rugged mountains and hellish deserts, however, the story makes a turn for the better into the type of Western lore one expects from Zane Grey or Owen Wister. Still, Sienkiewicz stays true to his Romantic roots. The final chapter is as emotionally intense as any of the military epics for which he’s primarily famous. Lillian Morris is a great read for fans of Sienkiewicz, or even anyone who just enjoys a great Western yarn.

Even better is the short story that follows, entitled “Sachem.” A small town in Texas is forced to confront its genocidal past when a traveling circus comes to town. The program’s headline act is a performance by an Indian chief of the very tribe they exterminated. Here Sienkiewicz expertly straddles the line between shameful tragedy and biting wit. The next selection, “Yamyol” (or “Angel”) doesn’t fare as well. A funeral takes place at a Polish village church on a snowy night. At the conclusion of the ceremony, an orphan girl, left behind by the deceased, departs for a nearby mansion where she will be housed as a servant. If you read enough about Polish literature on the web, you’ll find a fair amount of complaints about the work of Jeremiah Curtin, Sienkiewicz’s most prolific translator. Though I don’t read or speak Polish, it seems that this story in particular contains many awkward passages that were likely caused by too-literal interpretations of slang expressions or idioms. The final piece in the book, “The Bull Fight: A Reminiscence of Spain,” is exactly what the title indicates. Sienkiewicz describes in exquisite detail a bull fight in Madrid. Though there’s little storyline, it is a well-rendered, naturalistic evocation of its topic, at times exciting and always educational.

Though the subject matter of these works may be atypical for Sienkiewicz, for the most part the quality of the writing is what you would expect from this Nobel-calibre author. Lillian Morris and Other Stories is a testament to his versatility and a satisfying showcase of his short fiction.

Works in this collection

Lillian Morris

Sachem 

Yamyol 

The Bull Fight 

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Life and Death and Other Legends and Stories by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Short cuts
Despite its unnecessarily long title, Life and Death and Other Legends and Stories is a thin volume of short works by Nobel Prize-winning Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz. This collection was first published in 1904 and contains English-language translations of five brief writings.

The collection opens with its title selection, “Life and Death: A Hindu Legend.” As the subtitle indicates, this is Sienkiewicz’s retelling of an ancient Indian myth. It explains how Brahma created a bipartite world consisting of the Plain of Life, governed by Vishnu, and the Plain of Death, governed by Siva, and how he tailored this division to suit the needs of mankind. This is simply a beautiful tale well-told. In “Is He the Dearest One?” a mother is visited by a wanderer who brings her news of her sons. This one’s so brief there’s little point in summarizing it, but despite its brevity it’s a moving piece. “A Legend of the Sea” is the least effective selection of the book. Sienkiewicz describes a majestic ship named The Purple that is obviously a metaphor for some nation, Poland being the most likely candidate. The author makes his point, but the analogy between ship and country feels forced at times, and the story just isn’t all that interesting. “The Cranes,” on the other hand, succeeds far better. It’s an autobiographical sketch of his time spent in California, describing one period when he felt particularly homesick for mother Poland. In addition to being perhaps Poland’s most patriotic author, Sienkiewicz is also unapologetically pro-Christian. Lest we forget, he gives us “The Judgment of Peter and Paul on Olympus,” in which the two apostles journey to the mythical mountain to pass judgment on the pagan gods of the Greek pantheon.

All five stories are very short, so they tend to end abruptly and leave the reader wanting more. That said, for the most part they succeed in what they set out to accomplish. It’s doubtful that Sienkiewicz intended any of these short-shorts to be masterpieces, and they aren’t masterpieces, but together they make for a pleasant 65-page read. The English translations are by Jeremiah Curtin, the perennial translator of Sienkiewicz’s works. If you’re a fan of Sienkiewicz, you’ve no doubt come across reviews that complain about Curtin’s inadequate translation skills. Perhaps that’s true for the complex historical novels, but for these simple stories he does a fine job. The English prose is fluid and elegant.

Sienkiewicz and Curtin published a handful of these hodgepodge collections of short works in translation, among them So Runs the World, Sielanka: An Idyll, Hania, and Lillian Morris and Other Stories. None of them measures up to the power of his great novels, but each has its own buried treasures, and this one’s pretty good overall. Besides, the whole book can be read in little more than a half hour, so what have you got to lose?

Works in this collection

Life and Death: A Hindu Legend 

Is He the Dearest One?

A Legend of the Sea 

The Cranes 

The Judgment of Peter and Paul on Olympus 

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Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian by Henryk Sienkiewicz, et al.

The underdogs of European literature

Maurice Maeterlinck

This book is part of the Stories by Foreign Authors series, a ten-volume collection of European short fiction in English translation published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1898. While previous volumes in the series were devoted to French, German, Spanish, Russian, Scandinavian, and Italian authors, this book is a mixed bag of stories from the “leftover” nations of Europe. While the countries represented here may not be as renowned for their literature as some of the aforementioned nationalities, these writers prove that they certainly deserve to be regarded alongside their A-list counterparts.

Poland’s Henryk Sienkiewicz is the first of two Nobel laureates featured in the book. His story “The Light-House Keeper of Aspinwall” takes place in a coastal locale near the Panama Canal. When the local light-house keeper dies, a fitting replacement is found in the form of an aged Pole who has adventured far and wide in the world and now longs for a place of repose. The main character is intriguing and appealing, and Sienkiewicz’s prose has rarely been more elegant. The story is very good, though it does fall prey to over-sentimentality towards the end.

Next up is Greek author Demetrios Bikélas with “The Plain Sister.” Out of gratitude for a friend, a bachelor professor considers marrying the eldest daughter of a merchant, thereby clearing the way for his friend to marry her younger sister. This is a light-hearted story that’s pretty predictable from beginning to end, but the reader will be charmed by the likeable characters and touching moments of humor.

Belgium is represented by two authors, the first of which is Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck. Nicknamed “the Belgian Shakespeare,” Maeterlinck is known as a poet and dramatist, but here he proves to be an excellent fiction writer as well. His story “The Massacre of the Innocents” is by far the most powerful in the book. In the Flemish village of Nazareth, a cycle of violence and retaliation escalates between the Belgian villagers and their Spanish conquerors. It’s a brutally realistic and heartbreakingly tragic tale of terrorism in the age of sword, pike, and torch. In the second Belgian entry, “Saint Nicholas Eve” by Camille Lemonnier, a poor Flemish boatman and his family celebrate the titular holiday. The scene is so blissful and picturesque the reader can’t help but suspect that an unexpected tragedy will darken the mood. This has the makings of a good story, but something seems to have been lost in the translation, as scenes that should feel emotionally charged end up coming across as awkward and clumsy.

The book concludes with “In Love with the Czarina,” by Hungarian author Maurice Jokai (or Mór Jókai, in his native tongue). It is based on the true story of Jemeljan Pugasceff (a.k.a. Yemelyan Pugachev), a Cossack who falls in love with Catherine the Great. After her husband Czar Peter III dies, Pugasceff ignites a rebellion in an attempt to capture the crown of Russia and take her for his bride. This story is reminiscent of the military epics of Sienkiewicz, such as With Fire and Sword. Though it starts and ends well, in between it grows a bit tedious with the minutiae of troop movements.

Stories by Foreign Authors is a great series that brings to light quite a few authors of a century ago that are largely forgotten today. While the classic fiction of France and Russia still enjoys a large English-language audience, this volume reminds us that there are treasures of European literature to be discovered off the beaten path as well.

Stories in this collection

The Light-House Keeper of Aspinwall by Henryk Sienkiewicz 

The Plain Sister by Demetrios Bikélas 

The Massacre of the Innocents by Maurice Maeterlinck 

Saint Nicholas Eve by Camille Lemonnier 

In Love with the Czarina by Maurice Jokai 

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Sielanka: An Idyll by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Another day in paradise
This little book of about a hundred pages consists of two short stories by Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz, winner of the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature. The first story is the title selection, “Sielanka: An Idyll,” followed by a story entitled “Orso.” These two pieces were translated into English by Vatslaf A. Hlasko and Thomas H. Bullick and published together in an 1898 edition. This is not to be confused with an 1899 book entitled Sielanka: A Forest Picture, translated by Jeremiah Curtin, which contains 17 short works by Sienkiewicz. The Hlasko and Bullick edition is the one I’m reviewing, and it’s the one that’s available as a free Kindle file on Amazon.

The subtitle tells you most of what you need to know about “Sielanka.” It describes the idyllic life of a father and daughter who reside in a picturesque forest glade, surrounded by flowers, birds, and insects. All is pretty and pleasant in this little world. A young man shows up, obviously very much in love with the girl, and they spend the day together gathering herbs in the forest. The story has almost no plot, but it’s not without its charms. It starts out with some very beautiful depictions of the natural environment that are a joy to read. In the latter half of the narrative Sienkiewicz introduces more religious imagery. It eventually became too much for me when the trees, birds, and humans all began offering their vociferous prayers to God. Sienkiewicz at times is an overtly Christian author, which is great for some readers, but not my cup of tea.

The second story, “Orso,” is set in America, where Sienkiewicz lived from 1876 to 1878. It describes a paradise of a different kind: Southern California. It’s harvest time in Anaheim, and the population, mostly of Mexican and Native American origin, are celebrating with a fair. Part of the festivities includes a traveling circus. The main attraction among the performers is Orso the strong man, a teenage half-breed Hercules. His partner Jenny, whom he loves dearly, is a petite young acrobat billed as the world’s most beautiful girl. Fed up with the abuse of the ringmaster, these two long to escape from the circus and start a new life. Sienkiewicz sets the stage beautifully by describing the setting in a vividly naturalistic style, reminiscent of the writing of California author Frank Norris in such pieces as “The Santa Cruz Venetian Carnival.” More than just a pretty picture however, the story is also very engaging, and the reader becomes quite taken with this young couple and their hopes and fears.

Sienkiewicz is known for his epics, but these two stories illustrate that he could also write compelling fiction on a smaller scale. Stylistically, he straddles the line between romanticism and realism, taking what he needs from both and combining them as needed. Neither of these two stories is an earth-shattering masterpiece, but together they sure do make for a pleasurable hour of reading. “Orso” in particular is a gem that makes me want to seek out more of Sienkiewicz’s writings on America.

Stories in this collection

Sielanka: An Idyll 

Orso 

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So Runs the World by Henryk Sienkiewicz

What’s wrong with Romanticism

Henryk Sienkiewicz

So Runs the World, a collection of odds and ends from Polish Nobel Prize winner Henryk Sienkiewicz, was first published in English translation in 1898. It contains four short works—an essay of literary criticism, a one-act play, a short story, and a five-act play. The book opens with an introduction by translator S. C. de Soissons that’s heaping with praise. De Soissons singles out Sienkiewicz’s Christianity as one of his work’s most positive qualities. For the most part, the introduction is nearly unintelligible, as if written by someone for whom English is a second language. That’s a problem that plagues the entire book. The translations could be described as at best antiquated and at worst clumsy.

The main reason I wanted to read this collection is for Sienkiewicz’s essay on French novelist Emile Zola, simply entitled “Zola”. I’m a big fan of both authors, but Sienkiewicz does not share my enthusiasm for Zola. The essay is vehemently negative. Sienkiewicz attacks Zola’s lack of godliness and his concentration on the dirty, immoral side of life. He also criticizes Zola’s Rougon-Macquart cycle of novels, asserting that the theories of heredity that Zola employs in the series simply defy logic. While there may be some validity to that point, and that portion of the essay is well-argued, for the most part Sienkiewicz comes across as a prudish and intolerant enemy of any realist work that doesn’t strive to depict the ideal. He admits that Germinal and The Debacle are good books, but considers La Terre to be filth, presumably because it discusses manure, vomit, and farts (although Sienkiewicz only mentions the first of the three). Personally, I think there’s room for both Naturalism and Romanticism in the literary pantheon, and both writers were excellent novelists within their own stylistic spheres.

“Whose Fault?” is a one-act play about two former lovers who reunite after two years apart. They have both gone on with their lives, but still have unresolved issues between them. It’s a mediocre scene that seems disembodied and pointless, as if arbitrarily plucked from a larger work. “The Verdict” is a short story in which Apollo and Hermes bet on whether the former can seduce an Athenian baker’s wife. As the story goes on, it seems to be building into a joke or a fable, but the punchline/moral is so lame and disappointing it doesn’t succeed as either.

The last and longest piece in the book is its best, though that’s faint praise indeed. Win or Lose is a play of substantial length that is pretty entertaining throughout. It’s about a Polish princess who has recently become engaged, yet there’s still three other suitors vying for her hand. Two favorites soon rise to the top, but it’s difficult to tell which of them Sienkiewicz favors until the very end. Matters are made more interesting by a parliamentary election in which two of the men are candidates. One is a wealthy son of blue-blooded nobility, while the other is an uppity member of the lower classes who has elevated his station in life through hard work and determination. The play has promise, and makes some good points in its fifth act, but it’s ruined by an abrupt and underwhelming ending.

Sienkiewicz is a great novelist whose epics, like those of Victor Hugo, epitomize the power and glory of Romanticism. Yet, as is all too evident here, Romanticism also has its downside. There’s a pretentiousness and an irrelevance to these short works that doesn’t reflect well on their author. Even the title of the book, which bears no relation to its contents, is unnecessarily pompous. If Zola were to employ such a title, at least we could take comfort in knowing he was being sarcastic.

Works in this collection

Introduction by S. C. de Soissons 

Zola 

Whose Fault? 

The Verdict 

Win or Lose 

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