Preparing for the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along: Quo Vadis

Tomorrow, April 10, is the one hundredth day of 2021, the day we finish The Divine Comedy in this year’s chapter-a-day read-along. I’ll post a wrap-up of The Divine Comedy tomorrow, but today we look ahead to our next book, Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz. I have been looking forward to reading Quo Vadis ever since I began planning this year’s read-along. I’ve read it a few times before and even taught it to junior high students, but I am especially excited to read this newer translation by W. S. Kuniczak. Published in 1896, Quo Vadis was the book that led to Henryk Sienkiewicz receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1905. It’s a powerful work of historical fiction told by a master storyteller, and I hope you come to love it as much as I do.

What to Know Before Beginning to Read Quo Vadis

Quo Vadis is “an epic saga of love, courage and devotion in Nero’s time,” says the blurb on the back of my copy from Hippocrene Books:

An epic saga of love, courage, and devotion in Nero’s time, Quo Vadis portrays the degenerate days leading to the fall of the Roman Empire and the glory and agony of early Christianity. Set at a turning point in history (A.D. 54-68), as Christianity replaces the era of corruption and gluttony that marked Nero’s Rome, Quo Vadis brims with life.

The novel centers on Marcus Vinicius, a young Roman patrician, and his relationship with Ligia, daughter of the King of Ligia. Quo Vadis is peopled with historical figures like the “arbiter of elegance” Gaius Petronius, the Emperor Nero and his wife Poppaea, and the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul.

In addition to being a fine work of historical fiction, Quo Vadis is arguably the most successful Polish novel ever to be written:

The scale of the novel’s success all over the world surprised the author himself. In the United States Quo Vadis was the most popular book of 1898 and the great William Faulkner was one of Sienkiewicz’s fans. The French audience praised the novel as well, but French critics could not stand the fact that Sienkiewicz was not French. (Culture.pl)

For those of you who have been participating in the chapter-a-day read-alongs for a while, you will find that the chapters of Quo Vadis are a little longer than usual, averaging about 8 pages per day. It will probably take a few chapters to get used to Sienkiewicz’s prose, especially after the poetic language of The Divine Comedy, but soon we we will be walking through the streets of ancient Rome without any difficulty.

You can read Quo Vadis for free using the online text at Project Gutenberg, which features a translation by Jeremiah Curtin. There is also a slightly adapted and abridged edition of the Curtin translation by James Bell, which is still available for the Kindle or on Apple Books. You can also find a free audiobook version on Librivox.

Quo Vadis is 73 chapters long with an epilogue, and we will be reading it from April 11 to June 23. Follow along on Twitter and/or Faceebook by using the hashtag #quovadisreadalong