During his extensive voyages he actively documented prevailing customs, ongoing wars, revolutions and national awakenings, which made him a pioneer of travel literature.

[1] His colorful life took him across Europe, Asia and North Africa, where he embroiled himself in political intrigues, flirted with secret societies and contributed to the birth of ethnology – he was one of the first to study the precursors of the Slavic peoples from a linguistic and historical standpoint.

[2] In 1790 he became the first person in Poland to fly in a hot air balloon when he made an ascent over Warsaw with the aeronaut Jean-Pierre Blanchard, an exploit that earned him great public acclaim.

[4] Potocki's wealth enabled him to travel extensively about Europe, the Mediterranean and Asia, visiting Italy, Sicily, Malta, the Netherlands, Germany, France, England, Russia, Turkey, Dalmatia, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Spain, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, and even Mongolia.

In 1812, disillusioned and in poor health, he retired to his estate at Uładówka (now Uladivka) near Vinnytsia in present-day Ukraine, suffering from "melancholia" (which today would probably be diagnosed as depression), and during the last few years of his life he completed his novel.

[5] The book's title is explained in the foreword, which is narrated by an unnamed French officer who describes his fortuitous discovery of an intriguing Spanish manuscript during the sack of Zaragoza in 1809, in the course of the Napoleonic Wars.

[7] There, over a period of sixty-six days, he encounters a varied group of characters, including Muslim princesses, Gypsies, outlaws, and kabbalists, who tell him an intertwining series of bizarre, amusing, and fantastic tales which he records in his diary.

The sixty-six stories cover a wide range of themes, subjects, and styles, including gothic horror, picaresque adventures, and comic, erotic, and moral tales.

Potocki's novel became more widely known thanks to the stylish black-and-white 1965 film adaptation directed by renowned filmmaker Wojciech Has and starring Zbigniew Cybulski as Alphonse van Worden.