Editio ultima? Around the Warsaw edition of “Works” by Aleksander Fredro (1880)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present the circumstances surrounding the preparation of the thirteen volumes of the Warsaw edition of Works by Aleksander Fredro (Gebethner and Wolff, 1880), and especially their confrontation with the writer’s dispositions, which were created during a period of silence of several years. At the time, Fredro was putting his literary legacy in order and preparing instructions for work on a collected edition of his works. What emerges from the brief notes is not only a poignant portrait of an author meticulously planning a posthumous edition, but also of an author who interprets his own oeuvre, makes necessary changes and selections in it, and gives rules for modernizing the spelling of loanwords such as “Francyja”, “Azya”, “rewolucyja”. The Warsaw edition, despite being subject to censorship and self-censorship, has for many years been unjustifiably considered editio ultima. Verified by Stanisław Pigoń, it remains to this day a contribution to studies of forgotten or ignored aspects of Aleksander Fredro’s creative activity.