Nasza Ksiegarnia, Warsaw, 1957. First edition with the Srokowski illustrations. [The original edition was in 1923.]
Light green cloth with birdcage vignette on front board, spine lettering in darker green, pictorial endpapers, pictorial dustwrapper; quarto, [iv], 5-153 + [ii] pages; with 6 fine coloured plates by Srokowski.

“This book, and its prequel King Matt The First (also first published in 1923) are the author's most celebrated works and thinly veiled allegories of the contemporary political situation in Poland. They tell the tale of a child prince who is catapulted to the throne by the sudden death of his father and learns how best to manage himself and his realm.

Henryk Goldszmit (1878-1942), who wrote under the pen-name of Janusz Korczak, was a Polish-Jewish educator, children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor ("Mr. Doctor") or Stary Doktor ("Old Doctor"), being the Director of a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw. Famously, when offered his freedom by the Nazis during the 'Great Action' of 1942, he refused to abandon his young charges, accompanying them from the ghetto to Treblinka extermination camp where he, and they, met their death.”

Biography
Korczak was born in Warsaw in 1878 or 1879. In 1896 he debuted on the literary scene with a satirical text on raising children, Węzeł gordyjski (The Gordian Knot). In 1898, he used Janusz Korczak as a pen name in the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Literary Contest. The name originated from the book Janasz Korczak and the Pretty Swordsweeperlady (O Janaszu Korczaku i pięknej Miecznikównie) by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski. In the 1890s he studied in the Flying University. During the years 1898–1904 Korczak studied medicine at the University of Warsaw and also wrote for several Polish language newspapers. After graduation, he became a pediatrician. In 1905−1912 Korczak worked at Bersohns and Baumans Children's Hospital in Warsaw. During the Russo-Japanese War, in 1905–06 he served as a military doctor. Meanwhile, his book Child of the Drawing Room (Dziecko salonu) gained him some literary recognition.

In 1907–08, Korczak went to study in Berlin. While working for the Orphans' Society in 1909, he met Stefania Wilczyńska, his future closest associate. In 1911–1912, he became a director of Dom Sierot in Warsaw, an orphanage of his own design for Jewish children. He hired Wilczyńska as his assistant. There he formed a kind-of-a-republic for children with its own small parliament, court, and a newspaper. He reduced his other duties as a doctor. Some of his descriptions of the summer camp for Jewish children in this period and subsequently, were later published in his Fragmenty Utworów and have been translated into English. During World War I, in 1914 Korczak became a military doctor with the rank of lieutenant. He served again as a military doctor in the Polish Army with the rank of major during the Polish-Soviet War, but after a brief stint in Łódź was assigned to Warsaw. After the wars, he continued his practice in Warsaw.

Sovereign Poland In 1926, Korczak arranged for the children of the Dom Sierot to begin their own newspaper, the Mały Przegląd (Little Review), as a weekly attachment to the daily Polish-Jewish newspaper Nasz Przegląd (Our Review). In these years, his secretary was the noted Polish novelist Igor Newerly.

During the 1930s, he had his own radio program where he promoted and popularized the rights of children. In 1933, he was awarded the Silver Cross of the Polonia Restituta. Between 1934–36, Korczak traveled every year to Mandate Palestine and visited its kibbutzim, which led to some anti-semitic commentaries in the Polish press. Additionally, it spurred his estrangement with the non-Jewish orphanage he had also been working for. Still, he refused to move to Palestine even when Wilczyńska went to live there in 1938. She returned to Poland in May 1939, unable to fit in, and resumed her role as headmistress.

The Holocaust
In 1939, when World War II erupted, Korczak volunteered for duty in the Polish Army, but was refused due to his age. He witnessed the Wehrmacht takeover of Warsaw. When the Germans created the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940, his orphanage was forced to move from its building, Dom Sierot at Krochmalna 92, to the Ghetto (first to Chłodna 33 and later to Sienna 16 / Śliska 9). Korczak moved in with them. In July, Janusz Korczak decided that the children in the orphanage should put on Rabindranath Tagore’s play, The Post Office.

On 5 or 6 August 1942, German soldiers came to collect the 192 orphans (there is some debate about the actual number: it may have been 196) and about one dozen staff members to transport them to the Treblinka extermination camp. Korczak had been offered sanctuary on the “Aryan side” by the Polish underground organization Żegota, but turned it down repeatedly, saying that he could not abandon his children. On 5 August, he again refused offers of sanctuary, insisting that he would go with the children.

The children were dressed in their best clothes, and each carried a blue knapsack and a favorite book or toy. Joshua Perle, an eyewitness, described the procession of Korczak and the children through the Ghetto to the Umschlagplatz (deportation point to the death camps):
“Janusz Korczak was marching, his head bent forward, holding the hand of a child, without a hat, a leather belt around his waist, and wearing high boots. A few nurses were followed by two hundred children, dressed in clean and meticulously cared for clothes, as they were being carried to the altar.”
— Ghetto eyewitness, Joshua Perle

According to eyewitnesses, when the group of orphans finally reached the Umschlagplatz, an SS officer recognized Korczak as the author of one of his favorite children's books and offered to help him escape. In another version, the officer was acting officially, as the Nazi authorities had in mind some kind of "special treatment" for Korczak (some prominent Jews with international reputations were sent to Theresienstadt). Whatever the offer, Korczak once again refused. He boarded the trains with the children and was never heard from again. Korczak's evacuation from the Ghetto is also mentioned in Władysław Szpilman's book The Pianist:
“He told the orphans they were going out into the country, so they ought to be cheerful. At last they would be able to exchange the horrible suffocating city walls for meadows of flowers, streams where they could bathe, woods full of berries and mushrooms. He told them to wear their best clothes, and so they came out into the yard, two by two, nicely dressed and in a happy mood. The little column was led by an SS man...”>br> — Władysław Szpilman, The Pianist

Some time after, there were rumors that the trains had been diverted and that Korczak and the children had survived. There was, however, no basis to these stories. Most likely, Korczak, along with Wilczyńska and most of the children, was killed in a gas chamber upon their arrival at Treblinka. A separate account of Korczak's departure is given in Mary Berg's Warsaw Ghetto diary:
“Dr. Janusz Korczak’s children’s home is empty now. A few days ago we all stood at the window and watched the Germans surround the houses. Rows of children, holding each other by their little hands, began to walk out of the doorway. There were tiny tots of two or three years among them, while the oldest ones were perhaps thirteen. Each child carried the little bundle in his hand.”
— Mary Berg, The Diary

There is a cenotaph for him at the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw, with a monumental sculpture of Korczak leading his children to the trains. Created originally by Mieczysław Smorczewski in 1982, the monument was recast in bronze in 2002. The original was re-erected at the boarding school for children with special needs in Borzęciczki, which is named after Janusz Korczak.

Writings
Korczak's best known writing is his fiction and pedagogy, and his most popular works have been widely translated. His main pedagogical texts have been translated into English, but of his fiction, as of 2012, only two of his novels have been translated into English: King Matt the First and Kaytek the Wizard.

As the date of Korczak's death was not officially established, his date of death for legal purposes was established in 1954 by a Polish court as 9 May 1946, a standard ruling for people whose death date was not documented but in all likelihood occurred during World War II. The copyright to all works by Korczak was subsequently acquired by The Polish Book Institute (Instytut Książki), a cultural institution and publishing house affiliated with the Polish government. In 2012 the Institute's rights were challenged by the Modern Poland Foundation, whose goal was to establish by court trial that Korczak died in 1942, so that Korczak's works would be available in the public domain as of 1 January 2013. The Foundation won the case in 2015 and subsequently started to digitise Korczak's works and release them as public domain e-books.

Korczak's overall literary oeuvre covers the period 1896 to 8 August 1942. It comprises works for both children and adults, and includes literary pieces, social journalism, articles and pedagogical essays, together with some scrappy unpublished work, totalling over twenty books, over 1,400 texts published in around 100 publications, and around 300 texts in manuscript or typescript form. A complete edition of his works is planned for 2012.

Children's books Korczak often employed the form of a fairy tale in order to prepare his young readers for the dilemmas and difficulties of real adult life, and the need to make responsible decisions.

In the 1923 King Matt the First (Król Maciuś Pierwszy) and its sequel King Matt on the Desert Island (Król Maciuś na wyspie bezludnej) Korczak depicted a child prince who is catapulted to the throne by the sudden death of his father, and who must learn from various mistakes:

He tries to read and answer all his mail by himself and finds that the volume is too much and he needs to rely on secretaries; he is exasperated with his ministers and has them arrested, but soon realises that he does not know enough to govern by himself, and is forced to release the ministers and institute constitutional monarchy; when a war breaks out he does not accept being shut up in his palace, but slips away and joins up, pretending to be a peasant boy - and narrowly avoids becoming a POW; he takes the offer of a friendly journalist to publish for him a "royal paper" -and finds much later that he gets carefully edited news and that the journalist is covering up the gross corruption of the young king's best friend; he tries to organise the children of all the world to hold processions and demand their rights – and ends up antagonising other kings; he falls in love with a black African princess and outrages racist opinion (by modern standards, however, Korczak's depiction of blacks is itself not completely free of stereotypes which were current at the time of writing); finally, he is overthrown by the invasion of three foreign armies and exiled to a desert island, where he must come to terms with reality – and finally does.

In 2012, another book by Korczak was translated into English. Kajtuś the Wizard (Kajtuś czarodziej) (1933) anticipated Harry Potter in depicting a schoolboy who gains magic powers, and it was very popular during the 1930s, both in Polish and in translation to several other languages. Kajtuś has, however, a far more difficult path than Harry Potter: he has no Hogwarts-type School of Magic where he could be taught by expert mages, but must learn to use and control his powers all by himself - and most importantly, to learn his limitations.

Korczak's "The Persistent Boy" was a biography of the French scientist Louis Pasteur, adapted for children - as stated in the preface - from a 685-page French biography which Korczak read. The book clearly aims to portray Pasteur as role model for the child reader. A considerable part of the book is devoted to Pasteur's childhood and boyhood, and his relations with parents, teachers and schoolmates. It is emphasised that Pasteur, destined for world-wide fame, started from inauspicious beginnings - born to poor working class parents in an obscure French provincial town and attending a far from high-quality school. There, he was far from a star pupil, his marks often falling below average. As repeatedly emphasised by Korczak, Pasteuer's achievements, both in childhood and in later academic and scientific career, were mainly due to persistence (as hinted in the title). A relentless and eventually successful effort to overcome his limitations and early failures.

Pedagogical books
In his pedagogical works, Korczak shares much of his experience of dealing with difficult children. Korczak's ideas were further developed by many other pedagogues such as Simon Soloveychik and Erich Dauzenroth.

Thoughts on corporal punishment
Korczak spoke against corporal punishment of children at a time when such treatment was considered a parental entitlement or even duty. In The Child’s Right to Respect (1925), he wrote,
“In what extraordinary circumstances would one dare to push, hit or tug an adult? And yet it is considered so routine and harmless to give a child a tap or stinging smack or to grab it by the arm. The feeling of powerlessness creates respect for power. Not only adults but anyone who is older and stronger can cruelly demonstrate their displeasure, back up their words with force, demand obedience and abuse the child without being punished. We set an example that fosters contempt for the weak. This is bad parenting and sets a bad precedent".

Jerzy Srokowski (born on September 25, 1910 in Warsaw , died on March 3, 1975 ibid) - Polish graphic artist and illustrator, book illustrator, stage designer and teacher.

He began to study drawing and graphics at the Municipal School of Decorative Arts and Painting, in 1935 he began studies at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts under Miłosz Kotarbiński and graduated in 1939. As a caricaturist, he made his debut in Szpilki in the first year of studies, cooperation lasted throughout the entire period of study until the outbreak of World War II and again from 1945, when Jerzy Srokowski became the graphic designer of this magazine. During his studies, his drawings also appeared in " Kurier Poranny ", " Prosto z mostu " and in " Mucha ". After 1945 he collaborated with " Nowa Kultura ", " Problemy ", " Życie Warszawy " and " Wieczor ", where from 1947 to 1948 he created a drawing cycle entitled "Pani Dziuba". He was involved in illustrating books, for many years he was a stage designer , actor and scriptwriter in Guliwer's Doll and Actor Theater . In 1956, in recognition of the work of the illustrator, he received the Prime Minister's Award. He started cooperation with Polish Television , where he was the set designer for many popular programs, including to the Cabaret of Old Men (from 1958). In 1965, he went to Damascus for three years, where he was a professor of the fine arts department at the local university and founder of the graphic studio. After returning in 1968, he returned to work in the theater. He became the graphic manager in the Warsaw publishing house "Czytelnik" and simultaneously in the editorial office of the periodical " Miesięcznik Polski ". In addition to numerous prizes, which Jerzy Srokowski received for his prints and posters in 1973, he was honored with a Gold Pin with Wawrzyń . He died in 1975, rests at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw (74-III).

The achievements of Jerzy Srokowski are very extensive, the artist apart from creating illustrations, scenography and graphics was also involved in the exhibition and design of posters. The drawings of the desert and the wilderness , King Matt the First , have passed to the classics of illustrativeness. He was a caricaturist, his works were exhibited at home and abroad. As a scenographer he used the means available at that time, saving his expression and humorous approach to the subject allowed him to create unforgettable decorations for the Cabaret of the Elderly.