The author of one of the most significant Croatian novels of the nineteenth century, Ante Kovacic did not live to see the publication of his masterpiece in book form. After years of financial hardship and of harassment by the church and the representatives of a foreign government in his country, he died prematurely in a state hospital.

During his lifetime Kovacic either published his works in literary magazines or paid for the publication of monographs, always suffering a loss. After his death his wife, Milka, left with four children and pregnant, sold his manuscripts and copyrights to St. Kugli of Zagreb. She neither saw her husband's works published promptly, as had been stipulated, nor did she receive the entire sum of the pittance on which they had agreed. Kovacic's masterpiece, U registraturi (At the Registry, 1911), and several collections of his other works appeared in print about two decades...