The Promised Land (novel)

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The Promised Land (orig. Polish Ziemia Obiecana) is an 1899 novel by Polish writer Władysław Reymont. It is considered one of his most important works.

Set in the industrial city of Łódź, The Promised Land tells the story of a Pole, a German, and a Jew struggling to build a factory in the raw world of 19th century capitalism.

Reymont's 1899 novel vividly paints a portrait of the rapid industrialization of Łódź and its cruel effects on workers and mill owners. "For that land people were born. And it sucked everything in, crushed it in its powerful jaws, and chewed people and objects, the sky and the earth, in return giving useless millions to a handful of people, and hunger and hardship to the whole throng," he wrote.

[edit] Plot summary

Karol Borowiecki, a Polish nobleman, is the managing engineer at the Bucholz textile factory. He plans to set up his own factory with the help of his friends Max Baum, a German and heir to an old handloom factory, and Moritz Welt, an independent Jewish businessman. Borowiecki's affair with Lucy Zucker, wife of another textile magnate, gives him advance notice of a change in cotton tariffs and helps Welt to make a killing on the Hamburg futures market. But more money has to be found, so all three characters cast aside their pride to raise the necessary capital.

On the day of the factory opening, Borowiecki has to deny his affair with Zucker's wife to a jealous husband. But while Borowiecki accompanies Lucy on her exile to Berlin, Zucker apparently takes his revenge by burning down the three partners' uninsured factory.