polski
Books
Ignacy J. Paderewski's book collection includes more than 4,000 items. The belles-lettres section is highly represented in the collection. It includes among others the nineteenth-century editions of works by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Victor Hugo, and Charles Baudelaire (in original languages), editions of the collected works by Jan Kochanowski, Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki, and the works of Stanisław Przybyszewski, Stanisław Wyspiański, and others. A small part of the section is literature for children and young people, including the beautiful editions of works by Carlo Collodi and sir James Matthew Barrie, and popular literature such as romantic novels, adventure books, and detective stories, such as those by Agatha Christie. But the highlight of the collection is a set of more than 150 volumes of English literature. This was a gift from the artist's English friend Alfred Harmsworth (Lord Northcliffe), a British newspaper and publishing magnate. The set includes, among other things, the works by William Shakespeare, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, John Ruskin, William Morris, Oscar Wilde, Joseph Rudyard Kipling, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Brontë.
Examples of bookplates from Paderewski's library
(on the right, ex libris created by William P. Barrett)
An important place in Paderewski's book collection is occupied by historical books. Numerous publications on the history of particular countries, including voluminous publications on the history of France and the French Revolution, monographs of Polish emigration, and an extensive collection of works dedicated to military commanders and leading political figures, are a testimony of the historical and political interests of the eminent pianist and statesman.
The relatively small music section is represented by several monographs of Chopin, Beethoven, Wagner, and others, as well as several biographies of Paderewski himself, published during the artist's life. In this part of the collection, several valuable publications can also be found. For example, there is the second edition of the Dictionnaire de musique by Jean-Jacques Rousseau dating back to 1768, and the first edition of Słownik muzyków polskich [Dictionary of Polish Musicians] by Wojciech (Albert) Sowiński, issued in 1874 in Paris.
In Paderewski's book collection, it is also possible to distinguish a group of works on philosophy, theology, and spirituality. For example, there are works by Ernest Renan and Gaston Frommel, geographical works (guides, travel reports, and geographical atlases), books on the history of art (albums and exhibition catalogues), and the armorials of the Polish nobility. A significant number of dictionaries is also worth mentioning (including Polish language dictionaries and dictionaries in various languages including French, Russian, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and Chinese), as well as a compendia of grammar (Polish, French, English, Italian, Hebrew, and Greek). The section is complemented by oratory works and so-called phrasebooks (Polish-Russian, English-Spanish, and French-German).
In Paderewski's collection, a small magazine section can be also distinguished. It consists of Polish periodicals (including Wierchy, Muzyka, Kwartalnik Muzyczny, and Gazeta Rolnicza), American publications (e.g., Foreign Affairs and The National Geographic Magazine), British publications (such as The Anglo-Saxon Review), and French magazines (e.g., Revue des politiques science, La Pologne, and Le monde musical).