In the last phase of Franciszek Karpiński's life as a writer (the first quarter of the 19th century), he practically gave up poetry and concentrated instead on writing memoirs. This article tries to find out to what extent his autobiographical work, especially his Historia mego wieku i ludzi, z którymi żyłem [A History of My Century and the People with Whom I Lived], is influenced by an attitude characteristic of the sentimentalism of the previous century. As this analysis shows Karpiński's narrative exhibits both a sensitivity much indebted to Rousseau's autobiographical method and skilful shifts of tone, from satire and irony to various shades of melancholy. For sentimentalist aesthetic and poetics the continual manipulation of tone is a means of alerting the reader to the world's complexity. As in the novels of Lawrence Sterne, that complexity is experienced by way of careful observation of fragments of reality, defined by the subjectivity of the observer and the truth of his emotions.

This articles explores the life and work of Elżbieta Glaize Walkerowa, a forgotten poet from the early19th century and owner of a girls’ boarding school in Lwów. Hitherto unknown archival sources, which have been used to reconstruct her biography, reveal that she was a close relative of François Glaize, Poland's most eminent tapestry-weaver, with connections to the House of Działyński (the Trojanów branch). The second part the article focuses on Elżbieta Glaize's 1801 debut poetry volume Pierwiastki mojej muzy [ Elements of My Muse]. The poems, written in the sentimental style which was in fashion at that time, represent the sensitivity and worldview of a young woman who, having been raised in a home steeped in literary culture, was keen to showcase her own literary ambition.