Born into an impoverished Polish noble family in Russian-ruled Congress Poland, in the late 1860s he began publishing journalistic and literary pieces.

[5][6] His family were impoverished Polish nobles, on his father's side deriving from Tatars who had settled in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

[5] He had five siblings: an older brother, Kazimierz (who died during January Uprising of 1863–1864), and four sisters: Aniela, Helena, Zofia and Maria.

[5] In 1867 he wrote a rhymed piece, "Sielanka Młodości" ("Idyll of Youth"), which was rejected by Tygodnik Illustrowany (The Illustrated Weekly).

[12][13] Meanwhile, in 1872, he had debuted as a fiction writer with his short novel Na marne (In Vain), published in the magazine Wieniec (Garland).

[5] This was followed by Humoreski z teki Woroszyłły (Humorous Sketches from Woroszyłła's Files, 1872), Stary Sługa (The Old Servant, 1875), Hania (Sienkiewicz) (1876) and Selim Mirza (1877).

[14] These publications made him a prominent figure in Warsaw's journalistic-literary world, and a guest at popular dinner parties hosted by the actress Helena Modrzejewska.

[12] His travels were financed by Gazeta Polska (The Polish Gazette) in exchange for a series of travel essays: Sienkiewicz wrote Listy z podróży (Letters from a Journey) and Listy Litwosa z Podróży (Litwos' Letters from a Journey), which were published in The Polish Gazette in 1876–78 and republished as a book in 1880.

[12][15] Other articles by him also appeared in Przegląd Tygodniowy (The Weekly Review) and Przewodnik Naukowy i Literacki (The Learned and Literary Guide), discussing the situation of American Polonia.

[13] He also wrote a play for Modjeska, aimed at an American public, Z walki tutejszych partii (Partisan Struggles), but it was never performed or published, and the manuscript appears to be lost.

[13] He first stayed in London, then for a year in Paris, delaying his return to Poland due to rumors of possible conscription into the Imperial Russian Army on the eve of a predicted new war with Turkey.

[18] After her death, he kept on traveling Europe, leaving his children with his late wife's parents, though he often returned to Poland, particularly staying for long periods in Warsaw and Kraków beginning in the 1890s.

[18] Sienkiewicz received 15,000 rubles, in recognition of his achievements, from an unknown admirer who signed himself "Michał Wołodyjowski" after the Trilogy character.

[18] Sienkiewicz used the money to set up a fund, named for his wife and supervised by the Academy of Learning, to aid artists endangered by tuberculosis.

[19] In 1892 Sienkiewicz signed an agreement for another novel, Rodzina Połanieckich (Children of the Soil), which was serialized in The Polish Gazette from 1893 and came out in book form in 1894.

[19] Sienkiewicz used his growing international fame to influence world opinion in favor of the Polish cause (throughout his life and since the late 18th century, Poland remained partitioned by her neighbors, Russia, Austria and Prussia, later Germany).

[25] In 1900, with a three-year delay due to the approaching centenary of Mickiewicz's birth, Sienkiewicz celebrated his own quarter-century, begun in 1872, as a writer.

[20] A jubilee committee presented him with a gift from the Polish people: an estate at Oblęgorek, near Kielce,[20] where he later opened a school for children.

[21] Similarly, his contemporary novel Wiry (Whirlpools), 1910, which sought to criticize some of Sienkiewicz's political opponents, received a mostly polemical and politicized response.

[30] After the outbreak of World War I, Sienkiewicz was visited at Oblęgorek by a Polish Legions cavalry unit under Bolesław Wieniawa-Długoszowski.

[22] Otherwise, he eschewed politics, though shortly before his death he endorsed the Act of 5th November 1916, a declaration by Emperors Wilhelm II of Germany and Franz Joseph of Austria and king of Hungary, pledging the creation of a Kingdom of Poland envisioned as a puppet state allied with, and controlled by, the Central Powers.

Sienkiewicz's early works (e.g., the 1872 Humoreski z teki Woroszyłły) show him a strong supporter of Polish Positivism, endorsing constructive, practical characters such as an engineer.

[22] His Little Trilogy (Stary Sługa, 1875; Hania, 1876; Selim Mirza, 1877) shows his interest in Polish history and his literary maturity, including fine mastery of humor and drama.

[13] His 1882 stories "Bartek Zwycięzca" ("Bart the Conqueror") and "Sachem" draw parallels between the tragic fates of their heroes and that of the occupied Polish nation.

[17] His novel With Fire and Sword (1883–84) was enthusiastically received by readers (as were the next two volumes of The Trilogy), becoming an "instant classic", though critical reception was lukewarm.

[25] Quo Vadis became extremely popular, in at least 40 different language translations, including English-language editions totaling a million copies.

[20][21] In 1905 he received the most prestigious award in the world of literature, the Nobel Prize, after having been nominated in that year by Hans Hildebrand, member of the Swedish Academy.

Outside Poland, Sienkiewicz's popularity declined beginning in the interbellum, except for Quo Vadis, which retained relative fame thanks to several film adaptations, including a notable American one in 1951.

[31] His works have received criticism, in his lifetime and since, as being simplistic: a view expressed notably by the 20th-century Polish novelist and dramatist Witold Gombrowicz, who described Sienkiewicz as a "first-rate second-rate writer".

[31][34] Vasily Rozanov described Quo Vadis as "not a work of art", but a "crude factory-made oleograph", while Anton Chekhov called Sienkiewicz's writing "sickeningly cloying and clumsy".