![Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, Mrs. Hańska [1925]](https://gcp-la8-storage-cdn.lot-art.com/public/upl/32/Tadeusz-Boy-Zelenski-Mrs-Hanska-1925_6ac03052652b9-full-91975000_1790980179-6ac03053e08d6.jpg "Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, Mrs. Hańska [1925]")
Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, Mrs. Hańska [1925]
Title: Mrs. Hańska.
Author: Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński (1874–1941) [writer, satirist, literary and theater critic, physician, translator of French literature].
Publisher: Lviv, H. Altenberg; National Printing House in Kraków.
Year of publication: 1925.
Format: 13 cm.
Number of pages: 92.
Binding: cloth.
A biographical study dedicated to Ewelina Hańska and her seventeen-year relationship with Honoré de Balzac. The lovers waited eight years to be reunited and were married in 1850 in Berdyczów, a few months before the writer’s death. Boy rejects the need to condemn or exonerate the protagonist and argues that understanding is the only way forward. She draws on Balzac’s correspondence and on Hańska’s letters to her brother, Adam Rzewuski—published by Princess Katarzyna Radziwiłłowa—and challenges the new findings of Balzac scholar Marcel Bouteron. The 1925 Lviv edition preceded the 1926 Warsaw edition.
The Altenberg Publishing House was founded in 1880 in Lviv by Herman Altenberg (b. 1848). The company was renowned for its high-quality prints and illustrated albums, and its publications were often adorned with meticulous bindings from its own bookbinding workshop. From 1897 onward, it was run by the founder’s son, Alfred, and after his death in 1924, by his widow Jadwiga, until its closure in 1934.
Tadeusz Żeleński, who wrote under the pen name Boy, was born in 1874 in Warsaw as the son of composer Władysław Żeleński. From 1892 to 1900, he studied medicine at Jagiellonian University and practiced as a physician, including as a pediatrician. Associated with the Kraków bohemian circle of Young Poland, he co-founded the Zielony Balonik cabaret at Jama Michalika in 1906; his wife was Zofia Pareńska, immortalized by Wyspiański in *The Wedding* as Zosia. He translated over a hundred volumes of French classics, including *The Song of Roland*, Molière’s comedies, and Balzac’s *The Human Comedy*; during the Second Polish Republic, he was one of the most prominent columnists among the liberal intelligentsia. In 1933, he became a member of the Polish Academy of Literature. He was killed on the night of July 3–4, 1941, shot by the Germans on the slopes of Kadecka Mountain in Lviv during the massacre of Lviv professors.
Provenance: a piece without institutional stamps or ownership inscriptions.
An item for collectors of Boy’s works and interwar literature, enthusiasts of Lviv-based authors, and researchers of Balzac-style biographical writing. An elegant, small volume by one of Poland’s finest writers on love and literature, published by a prestigious Lviv publishing house.
The text block is solid and intact; the paper is clean, with minor natural soiling and discoloration due to age. The period cloth binding is in very good condition.
Catalog ID: 11497-13-A-X
Reserve
Time, Location
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Title: Mrs. Hańska.
Author: Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński (1874–1941) [writer, satirist, literary and theater critic, physician, translator of French literature].
Publisher: Lviv, H. Altenberg; National Printing House in Kraków.
Year of publication: 1925.
Format: 13 cm.
Number of pages: 92.
Binding: cloth.
A biographical study dedicated to Ewelina Hańska and her seventeen-year relationship with Honoré de Balzac. The lovers waited eight years to be reunited and were married in 1850 in Berdyczów, a few months before the writer’s death. Boy rejects the need to condemn or exonerate the protagonist and argues that understanding is the only way forward. She draws on Balzac’s correspondence and on Hańska’s letters to her brother, Adam Rzewuski—published by Princess Katarzyna Radziwiłłowa—and challenges the new findings of Balzac scholar Marcel Bouteron. The 1925 Lviv edition preceded the 1926 Warsaw edition.
The Altenberg Publishing House was founded in 1880 in Lviv by Herman Altenberg (b. 1848). The company was renowned for its high-quality prints and illustrated albums, and its publications were often adorned with meticulous bindings from its own bookbinding workshop. From 1897 onward, it was run by the founder’s son, Alfred, and after his death in 1924, by his widow Jadwiga, until its closure in 1934.
Tadeusz Żeleński, who wrote under the pen name Boy, was born in 1874 in Warsaw as the son of composer Władysław Żeleński. From 1892 to 1900, he studied medicine at Jagiellonian University and practiced as a physician, including as a pediatrician. Associated with the Kraków bohemian circle of Young Poland, he co-founded the Zielony Balonik cabaret at Jama Michalika in 1906; his wife was Zofia Pareńska, immortalized by Wyspiański in *The Wedding* as Zosia. He translated over a hundred volumes of French classics, including *The Song of Roland*, Molière’s comedies, and Balzac’s *The Human Comedy*; during the Second Polish Republic, he was one of the most prominent columnists among the liberal intelligentsia. In 1933, he became a member of the Polish Academy of Literature. He was killed on the night of July 3–4, 1941, shot by the Germans on the slopes of Kadecka Mountain in Lviv during the massacre of Lviv professors.
Provenance: a piece without institutional stamps or ownership inscriptions.
An item for collectors of Boy’s works and interwar literature, enthusiasts of Lviv-based authors, and researchers of Balzac-style biographical writing. An elegant, small volume by one of Poland’s finest writers on love and literature, published by a prestigious Lviv publishing house.
The text block is solid and intact; the paper is clean, with minor natural soiling and discoloration due to age. The period cloth binding is in very good condition.
Catalog ID: 11497-13-A-X
Reserve
Time, Location
Auction House
