Słowacki Juliusz - Lambro - The Greek Insurgent. A Poetic Novel in Two Songs

Juliusz Słowacki, Lambro - the Greek Insurgent. A Poetic Novel in Two Songs, ed. by Gubrynowicz and Schmidt, Lvov 1879, p. 70, dimensions 10.5 x 13.5 cm. Unpaginated. ownership stamps. Half cloth binding with gilt lettering on the face. Losses of paper on the binding. Rubbing of the binding edges.

The novel is characterized by an implicit autobiographical structure; the basis for its writing was the fall of the November Uprising, as well as Słowacki's awareness that he did not manage to take part in it directly. "Lambro" is also one of the first poetic descriptions of narcotic states in Poland, which resulted from the poet's personal experience with opium or mescaline and his reading of Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Man. The author gives the drug addiction of the title character a metaphysical dimension; it is a kind of escape from life and from conscience, bringing both salvation and defeat[2]. The author also polemicizes with the views on the nation contained in Adam Mickiewicz's Conrad Wallenrod. An excerpt from "Lambra" is the motto of "Kordian."