Aleksander Głowacki, known to Polish people by his pen name that’s Bolesław Prus , wrote many XIX century novellas about bad situation of talented children from poor background and their wasted potential. One of those children was Antek, a village kid with the wire for engineering, who would make mechanical toys, windmills in particular. Still, to give himself a chance he had to leave his home village as an adolescent and try his luck elsewhere. The period such books were written in Poland is called pozytywizm. Prus was not the only writer then. Another one was i.a. Eliza Orzeszkowa, who was called Polish George Sand.
