The period embraced in this set is "one of the most dramatic and fruitful of results in European Annals - remarkable for work and endeavor, especially in the Slav world," the author writes. Among Western Slavs, the great events were the Hussite Wars and the union of Lithuania and Polant. The Hussite Wars were caused by ideas of race and religion (born in Bohemia.) The period of Bohemian activity began in 1403 and ended in 1434, with the battle of Lipan.

Known for their great narrative power and contain vivid characterizations, Sienkiewicz' work includes the great trilogy of historical novels began to appear in 1883. It is composed of With Fire and Sword (1884), The Deluge (1886), and Pan Michael (1887-88). Set in the later 17th century, the trilogy describes Poland's struggles against Cossacks, Tatars, Swedes, and Turks, stressing Polish heroism in a vivid style of epic clarity and simplicity.

Henryk (Adam Alexander Pius) Sienkiewicz (1846-1916) was a novelist, born in Wola Okrzejska, Poland. He studied at Warsaw, travelled in the USA, and in the 1870s began to write articles, short stories, and novels. His major work was a war trilogy about 17th-c Poland, beginning with Ogniem i mieczem (1884, With Fire and Sword), but his most widely known book is the story of Rome under Nero, Quo Vadis? (1896), several times filmed, notably in 1951 by Mervyn Le Roy (1900-87). He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1905.