Th is paper aims to present the history of a precious manuscript from the collections of the Kórnik Library – Autograf Kościuszki. Th e manuscript, written by Tadeusz Kościuszko in mid- 1793, contains Opis kampanii r. 1792 – a description of a campaign launched against Russia. Having analysed the manuscript and discussed all the eight editions of its text, the author of the article presents its history up until the death of Józef Dobek Dzierzkowski from Lviv (1830). He subsequently discusses a brief history of Tytus Działyński’s acquaintance with Wiktor Baworowski, as contained in their mutual correspondence, which discloses the further complex fate of Autograf Kościuszki – information on its subsequent owner and the circumstances in which it found its way into the collections of the Kórnik Library. Finally, all the copies of the manuscript known from literature are discussed. In the Annex, the author publishes inter alia the abovementioned correspondence between Działyński and Baworowski.

The holdings of the PAS Gdańsk Library include the so-called Schwarzwald set marked by its uniform provenance, which is composed of the private collection of books of Heinrich Schwarzwald IV (1619-1672) and items collected in the library of St. Peter and Paul’s Church in Gdańsk from the 15th to the beginning of the 19th century – largely purchased using funds from this patrician. The Schwarzwald set in an almost complete form found its way to the City Library in Gdańsk in 1832; only in 1872 were manuscripts and incunabula added.
The paper sketches the history of the Schwarzwald set, placing it in the context of the early modern collectorship in Gdańsk, and presents its five hand-written catalogues, inventories and tables of contents created in the City Library in the 19th century. A quantitative analysis and a thematic division of Schwarzwald’s book collection and the holdings of the church library are also presented. The paper also indicates the benefits of studying broadly-understood book culture, resulting from the examination of historic catalogues and inventories, as well as imperfections in the drawing of conclusions on the basis of library materials without detailed examination of the studied collections.

Johann Fidalke (1703–1763), a Gdansk pastor and a gymnasium teacher, gathered a substantial collection of books comprising more than 10,000 volumes. After his death, the books were sold during four auctions, and the valuable collection was dispersed. However, owing to an auction catalogue kept in the collections of the Gdansk PAS Library, we may recreate the content of the Gdansk pastor’s collection. Its most considerable part was made up of different editions of the Holy Bible – with a total of 95 editions in 156 volumes. The article provides a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the said Bibles, focusing on the presentation of their languages as well as the places and times of their publication, and their bindings. The article is accompanied by an index, in which the different editions of the Bible in Fidalke’s collection are identified and catalogued in line with the contemporary standards, on the basis of the rudimentary information given in the auction catalogue.