Jan Potocki

Potocki's colorful life led him across Europe, Asia and North Africa, where he embroiled himself in political intrigues, flirted with secret societies, contributed to the birth of ethnology (he was one of the first to study the relations of the Slavic peoples from a linguistic and historical standpoint), and even rode the first hot-air balloon in Poland.

Potocki is said to have killed himself with a bullet fashioned from the strawberry-shaped silver knob of a sugar bowl that had been blessed by a priest.

[edit] Work

Potocki is most famous for his novel, The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, (written in French, original title: Manuscrit Trouvé à Saragosse), a frame tale, composed to entertain his wife, that collects the intertwining stories of a cast of gypsies, thieves, cabbalists and others that the Walloon Guard Alphonse van Worden encounters in the Sierra Morena of 18th-century Spain while en route to Madrid.

Recounted to the narrator over the course of sixty-six days, the novel's stories cover a wide range of themes and subjects — from the gothic to the picaresque, from the erotic to the moral — but as a whole reflect the author's interest in secret societies, the supernatural, and "Oriental" cultures.

On account of its rich interlocking structure, the novel has drawn comparisons to such celebrated works as the Decameron and the Arabian Nights.