[2] Her stage plays were translated into foreign languages, and performed at Polish and European theatres, as well as adapted for radio and film.

Zapolska herself acted on stage in over 200 plays in Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań, Lwów, Saint Petersburg and Paris.

In 1876 she was forced by her family to marry a Polish lieutenant in the Tsarist guard, Konstanty Śnieżko-Błocki, but soon left him and divorced in 1888.

[3] The same year she made her own short story debut by Jeden dzień z życia róży (One Day in the Life of a Rose).

In Paris, Zapolska established contacts within the artistic milieu as well as with Polish socialist emigrants, which influenced her social views.

As a feuilletonist and theatre critic she collaborated with Gazeta Krakowska, Słowo Polskie, Nowa Reforma, Ilustracja Polska and Wiek Nowy.

Gabriela Zapolska's works were dominated by naturalism – a literary movement seeking to replicate everyday reality.

Zapolska created acrimonious and embittered literary characters, such as those in her best-known works, Moralność pani Dulskiej, Żabusia, Ich czworo.

Her novels and short stories were translated into many languages, including English, Russian, German, Swedish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Ukrainian.

[3] Her Moralność pani Dulskiej, a 'petty-bourgeois tragic-farce', is considered by her most-known work and regarded as a landmark of early modernist Polish drama.

[2] The story of Moralność pani Dulskiej was continued in two short stories—Pani Dulska przed sądem and Śmierć Felicjana Dulskiego.