Life and Death, and Other Legends and Stories

By Henryk Sienkiewicz

A collection of short stories by Henryk Sienkiewicz, a Polish writer, novelist, journalist, and Nobel Prize laureate.
"Life and Death: A Hindu Legend" is an allegory of how Brahma separated the world between the Plain of Life and the Plain of Death, leaving its governance to Vishnu and Siva.
"Is He the Dearest One?" deals with the motherly love for a fallen son.
"A Legend of the Sea" is the story of the voyage of the ship Purple and its crew, who, because of pride, lost the very thing they treasured.
"The Cranes" is an account of the travels of Sienkiewicz and his dilemma of homesickness that led him to compose "Charcoal Sketches."
"The Judgement of Peter and Paul on Olympus" is an allegory presenting St. Peter and St. Paul's judgment on Greek gods living in Olympus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Apr 25, 2021
• ISBN: 4057664623485

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz also known by the pseudonym Litwos, was a Polish writer, novelist, journalist and Nobel Prize laureate. He is best remembered for his historical novels, especially for his internationally known best-seller Quo Vadis (1896). Born into an impoverished Polish noble family in Russian-ruled Congress Poland, in the late 1860s he began publishing journalistic and literary pieces. In the late 1870s he traveled to the United States, sending back travel essays that won him popularity with Polish readers. In the 1880s he began serializing novels that further increased his popularity. He soon became one of the most popular Polish writers of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and numerous translations gained him international renown, culminating in his receipt of the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "outstanding merits as an epic writer." Many of his novels remain in print. In Poland he is best known for his "Trilogy" of historical novels, With Fire and Sword, The Deluge, and Sir Michael, set in the 17th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; internationally he is best known for Quo Vadis, set in Nero's Rome. The Trilogy and Quo Vadis have been filmed, the latter several times, with Hollywood's 1951 version receiving the most international recognition.

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Henryk Sienkiewicz

Life and Death, and Other Legends and Stories

Published by Good Press, 2021

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EAN 4057664623485

Table of Contents

PREFACE

LIFE AND DEATH A HINDU LEGEND

IS HE THE DEAREST ONE?

A LEGEND OF THE SEA

THE CRANES

THE JUDGMENT OF PETER AND PAUL ON OLYMPUS

PREFACE

Table of Contents

Is He the Dearest One? was produced under the following circumstances: About fourteen years ago there was a famine, or at least hunger, in Silesia. Though that land is a German possession at present, it was once a part of the Polish Commonwealth, and there are many un-Germanized Poles in it yet.

The mother in this sketch is Poland. Yasko, the most unfortunate of her sons, is Silesia. Poor, ill-fated, he neglects his own language, forgets his mother; but she does not forget him, as was shown on the occasion of that hunger in Silesia. The Poles of Russian Poland collected one million marks and sent them to Yasko.

The ship Purple represents Poland and its career, and is a very brief summary of the essence and meaning of Polish history. Like some of the author’s most beautiful short productions, it was written for a benevolent object, all the money obtained for it being devoted to that object.

All persons who have read Charcoal Sketches, in Sienkiewicz’s Hania, will be interested to learn the origin of that striking production. It was written mainly and finished in Los Angeles, Cal., as Sienkiewicz told me in Switzerland six years ago, but it was begun at Anaheim Landing, as is described in the sketch printed in this volume, The Cranes. Besides being begun at Anaheim Landing, the whole plan of Charcoal Sketches was worked out there. The Cranes appeared in Lvov, or Lemburg, a few years ago, in a paper which was published for one