One of Croatia's most prolific realists, Vjenceslav Novak excelled in the portrayal of the middle class and the working class, or proletariat. Although he entered literature with a romantic story about life in Bosnia during Turkish domination, he soon chose realism as his predominant form of expression. In almost twenty-five years he wrote seven novels, nearly one hundred novellas and short stories, and several textbooks, handbooks, articles, feuilletons, and poems, as well as prose and poetry for children. It is still not known exactly how much he authored, for he wrote some things anonymously or under a pseudonym. What has been gathered, however, is so extensive that even the largest collection of Novak's works (Djela, 1931-1933) remains incomplete.

A definitive pronouncement on Novak as a writer has not yet been made. Many of his contemporaries thought of him mainly as a useful source of material to fill the...