STECZKOWSKA M. - Pictures from a trip to the Tatra Mountains. Unknown edition!

[STECZKOWSKA Maria] - Obrazki z podróży do Tatr i Pienin. Wyd. new, revised and multiplied. Cracow [not before 1872]. Bookg. J. M. Himmelblau. 16d, pp. [4], 308. oryg. fl. decor.
Wraps a bit dusty, slight loss of lower spine edge, front pastedown cracked at spine, minor damage to corner of first pages, minor stains. Foreign dedication on the front pastedown (dated 1942). On the front cover gilt title "Pictures to the Tatra Mountains and Pieniny". A classic of 19th century Tatra literature. The book was first published in 1858, reissued in 1872. The piece presented here appeared as the title edition of the 1872 edition. Himmelblau probably acquired some of the unsold edition, furnished the pieces with a new title card with a modernized spelling of the title. No sources available to us (bibliographies, library catalogs, etc.) record this edition. The only exception is Adolph Russell's catalog "Buch- und Kunst-Katalog. Gesammt-Verlags-Katalog des deutschen Buchhandels" published in Münster in 1882, where the book "Pictures from a Journey to the Tatra Mountains and Pieniny. n.r." is listed on p. 1180. (308 pp.)" placed in the section "J. M. Himmelblau, Krakau". "'Pictures' by Steczkowska belongs to the same family of phenomena as Goszczyński's 'Dziennik'. Thus, it is a journey in which descriptions of landscapes, natural observations, scientific data, ethnographic records and certain elements of fiction, linked to the author's subjective experiences, are mixed together [...]. The author toured in the company of good guides; she was led to the Tatra Mountains by Maciej Roj and the famous Jędrzej Wala, who also guided the author [...] through the Koscieliska Valley, depicted in the book with particular reverence. Steczkowska managed to accomplish what neither Goszczyński nor Stęczyński managed: she gave a synthetic picture of the entire Valley, subtle in artistic terms, logical in topographical terms, factual in information, and at the same time perfectly concretized and faithful to the subject" (Kolbuszewski 91). "It is not a guidebook (as the author herself points out), but it has certain features of such literature and for visitors to the Tatra Mountains it served as a guide, especially before the spread of Walery Eljasz's guidebook [...]. Both of these works ["Pictures" and "Excursion to Babia Gora" by the same author] [...] are an invaluable source of diverse information about the areas she visited". (WET 1149). This edition is very rare!