In her never-finished My Life’s Travels and Adventures, the eighteenth-century Polish doctor Regina Salomea Pilsztynowa plays a myriad of roles, including child bride, wife, mother, lover, adventuress, slave trader, writer, and home-taught physician. She successfully carved out a viable niche for herself, navigating the multicultural, multiethnic, and varied religious environment of Europe’s eastern periphery. Despite limited expectations for female professionals, she became a highly sought after and well-respected practitioner of the medical arts and rose to the position of court physician to Turkish pashas and Hungarian princes, and even to Sultan Mustafa III. My Life’s Travels and Adventures—part memoir, part autobiography, and part travelogue—provides a view into eighteenth-century social, professional, and gender interactions and weaves a rich narrative replete with vignettes of love, travel, and popular superstitions important to our historical, ethnographic, and religious understanding of the era.

This edition brings the entirety of this personal and idiosyncratic memoir to English for the first time.
 

Though often overlooked in conventional accounts, women with myriad backgrounds and countless talents have made an impact on Polish and Polish American history. John J. Bukowczyk gathers articles from the journals Polish Review and Polish American Studies to offer a fascinating cross-section of readings about the lives and experiences of these women. The first section examines queens and aristocrats during the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but also looks at the life of the first Polish female doctor. In the second section, women of the diaspora take center stage in articles illuminating stories that range from immigrant workers in Europe and the United States to women's part in Poland’s nationalist struggle. The final section concentrates on image, identity, and consciousness as contributors examine the stereotyping and othering of Polish women and their portrayal in ethnic and émigré fiction.

A valuable and enlightening resource, Through Words and Deeds offers an introduction to the many facets of Polish and Polish American womanhood.

Contributors: Laura Anker, Robert Blobaum, Anna Brzezińska, John J. Bukowczyk, Halina Filipowicz, William J. Galush, Rita Gladsky, Thaddeus V. Gromada, Bożena Karwowska, Grażyna Kozaczka, Lynn Lubamersky, Karen Majewski, Nameeta Mathur, Lori A. Matten, Jan Molenda, James S. Pula, Władysław Roczniak, and Robert Szymczak