Avant-garde - Poland - Zeromski, Stefan. Popioly. Powiesc historyczna z konca XVIII wieku i poczatku XIX. (Ashes. Historical novel from the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century). 2 volumes (all published). With 3 portrait plates (photogravures), 6 mounted color plates by Michal Borucinski as well as 16 full-page original etchings, further illustrations and book decoration by Edmund Bartlomiejczyk, who also designed the binding. Warsaw (and Krakow), Towarzystwo Wydawnicze w Warszawie, 1928. 2 pp., 370 p., 3 pp., 9 pp. facs.; 2 pp., 435 p., 2 pp., 2 pp. Facs. 30 x 23 cm. Original cloth bindings with gilt-stamped spine and cover titles and gilt spine (spine somewhat lightened, somewhat stained, edges rubbed, volume 1 with loss at lower right corners in covers, approx. 9 x 1 cm, volume 2 rear cover with corner loss). First illustrated edition. - One of 1375 numbered copies. - The photogravures under inscribed tissue paper. The color plates after watercolors. - A monumental, splendid edition of the Napoleon epic by S. Zeromski. Bibliophile edition on strong paper. The edition was supervised by Jakub Mortkowicz. Printed by W. L. Anczyc & Sp. in Krakow. Each of the volumes contains facsimiles of the author's manuscript pages in the appendix. - Binding and individual quires loosened, volume 1 in the last third with increasing waterstain in the upper margin, somewhat fingerstained in places.