Traces of a Bibliophile Romantic Book Collection in Polish Libraries.

Abstract

Since 2015, the research project Ludwig Tieck’s Library. Anatomy of a Romantic Comparatist Book Collection has conducted the virtual reconstruction of the library of German romanticist Ludwig Tieck. About 4.000 volumes have already been located all over Europe, and have been recorded in a database according to current bibliographical standards. Polish libraries verifiably contain a couple dozen of books from Tieck’s collection – it is, however, very probable that many more books from it have been dispersed in Poland after 1945 via the library of Count Yorck von Wartenburg (which was located in today’s Oleśnica Mała in the vicinity of Wrocław). The history of Tieck’s library and its dispersion, and its relevance to Polish library holdings, will be detailed in this paper. In closing, a description of material traits and distinctive features particular to books of Tieck/Yorck provenance will provide information useful to identify respective holdings in Polish libraries.