W. S Kuniczak

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. Quo Vadis is a powerful historical novel about the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Through a romance between a high-born Roman pagan and a Christian woman, Henryk Sienkiewicz masterfully brings to life the decadence of imperial Rome during the reign of Nero Claudius Caesar (AD 54-68), the bloodthirsty persecutor of the early Christians. Quo Vadis has been...

Despite some deviations, the book's historical framework is genuine and the fictional story is woven into real events. Many characters are historical figures, including Jeremi Wiśniowiecki and Bohdan Khmelnytsky (Polish: Bohdan Chmielnicki). Sienkiewicz researched memoirs and chronicles of the Polish nobility, or szlachta, for details on life in 17th-century Poland. The book was written, according to the author, "to lift up the heart" of the Polish...

"The time of this novel is 1939; the setting, Poland. Mr. Kuniczak covers the first 1000 hours of World War II when the small, ill-equipped Polish army made a magnificent holding action before the final surrender to the attacking Germans. Against the speeding background of the war evolves the story of General Janusz Prus, a gentle man of strong character, and his influence on his government and on the men and women around him."

Surrounding himself with murderous libertines and wastrels, wild young Polish soldier Andrei Kmita is misled into treason. But his pure love for spirited Olenka (Aleksandra Billevich) eventually sets him on track and inspires his single-minded mission, the defense of his motherland. It's the middle of the 17th century, and the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth is crushed in a vise of rebellion and bloody onslaughts by Swedes and Russians.