"Pharaoh’s" manuscript and its history

Abstract

The article attempts to reconstruct the history of the Pharaoh’s manuscript from the time Bolesław Prus began writing it (1894) until modern times. This reconstruction aims to gather knowledge about the Pharaoh’s manuscript and check if the history and materiality of the manuscript contain some clues about the most controversial part of the novel, the epilogue. The article says that the decision to keep the novel’s ending in the manuscript was not made by a censor or the publisher but by Bolesław Prus himself.