Leszek Engelking's collection includes 3,200 volumes, primarily literature and scientific works in several foreign languages, mainly Czech, but also in English, Slovak, German, Spanish, French and Ukrainian.
As part of the project, the entire collection has been decontaminated in a fumigation chamber and processed in the Central Catalogue of Polish Scientific and Academic Libraries (NUKAT) and the local SYMPHONY system.
The collection contents
From the perspective of modern languages studies, the collection includes original Czech literature that is difficult to access for students of Czech and Slavic studies, including works by Bohumil Hrabal, Egon Bonda, Daniela Hodrová, Jiří Kolář, and Jáchym Topol, as well as translations into Czech of works by writers such as Ezra Pound, Charles Bukowski, Vladimir Nabokov and Witold Gombrowicz.
In addition to the classics of Czech literature, the collection includes contemporary Czech prose and poetry: anthologies, as well as unique literary, illustrated and collector's editions as well as scientific studies (including those on film, aesthetics, music, literature and biographies of famous writers).
The collection includes books in English, e.g. works by J.R.R. Tolkien, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Herman Melville, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, as well as numerous scholarly studies, mainly on American poetry and prose, the works of selected writers and literary criticism.
The part of the book collection in English and other European languages: German, Slovak, Ukrainian, Spanish, French, includes poetry and texts on literary criticism and theory, which can be of use not only to literary and linguistic researchers, but also to students of various fields of study (modern languages, cultural studies, film studies) and to readers not involved in academic activities.
Additionally, the collection includes numerous scholarly works on world literatures, including rare lexical works on Czech and Slovak, the history of world literatures in several languages, and detailed sources on the history of Czech literature.
The project also includes prestigious editions of classics, primarily English and American literature, including editions from the Oxford World’s Classics series and The Wordsworth Poetry Library, as well as reprints of first editions, such as “The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats.”
The foreign collections worth highlighting include: Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Ballads" (1899), lexicons from the beginning of the 19th century, including "Novum Lexicon Manuale Graeco-Latinum" (1825) and "Handwörterbuch der griechischen Sprache" (W. Pape, 1842, 1863), and Czech literature published at the beginning of the 20th century, including Jan Vrba: "Dolina" (1926), "Otokar Březina" (1932).
Significance of the collection
The multilingual nature of the collection and its focus, stemming from Leszek Engelking's literary and translation work, make the project a relevant part of the curriculum for at least several study programmes and can be extremely valuable from the perspective of practicing translators and translation scholars.
The universality, diversity and multilingualism of the collection are the project's main strengths. It encompasses several academic disciplines (literary studies, cultural and religious studies, art studies, social communication and media studies, film studies, and linguistics). Due to its broad thematic scope and the presence of popular literature in the collection, this project can serve as research material and substantive support in preparing for classes and conducting research, while also enriching Polish library collections with popular and lesser-known foreign fiction.
The works collected by Dr Leszek Engelking are a valuable testimony to his research and personal passions – as a translator and populariser of mainly Czech literature, he contributed to the growth of interest in Czech culture in Poland, for which he was awarded ("Premia Bohemica", "Gratias Agit").
The "Development and Conservation of a Valuable Modern Languages Collection" project is a continuation of the work of this distinguished translator, poet and literary scholar. Given the scientific importance and state of preservation of the collection, the development, conservation and sharing of this valuable resource serves its protection and preservation. It will facilitate access to this unique modern language resource for all interested parties.
The project was completed on 31October 2025.
