Lalka with delivery to Ireland

The greatest Polish masterpiece of the novelist's art. Thanks to a fortune made during the Russo-Turkish War, the haberdashery merchant Stanisław Wokulski worms his way into the good graces of the Warsaw aristocracy. Yet it is not vanity that drives him into the salons, but an overpowering love for the impoverished aristocrat Izabela Łęcka. Ever since he first saw her at the theatre, everything he does has been directed towards a single goal: winning the heart of his beloved and gaining the favour of her father. Is Lalka, then, a novel about love and money? 'Of course,' argues Ryszard Koziołek, author of the introduction. 'Only it is a trap set by a cunning old fox of a writer, who knows full well that people will always follow stories about what they lack most. It is merely bait; what the author is really trying to do is draw the reader's attention to other matters, far more important than the romantic and financial tribulations of the characters.' For more than one hundred and thirty years Prus's richly layered novel, full of mysteries, has fascinated generation after generation of Poles, who despite the passage of time still see themselves reflected in it as if through a lens, both as a society and as individuals torn by passions and ambitions. 'To speak of oneself and to oneself in such a way that every one of hundreds of thousands of readers, ideally across the centuries, feels that the novel speaks of them and to them: that is the recipe for a masterpiece.'