This article explores the question of influence of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), a recondite theologian and philosopher whose writings continued to attract attention well into the nineteenth century, on the worldview and fiction of Boleslaw Prus (1845-1912). We know that he had Swedenborg's magnum opus 'On Heaven and Hell' (1758) in his library; its influence can be traced beyond any doubt in his short story 'The Dream' (1890) and the novel 'The Emancipationists' (1894). Also his unpublished philosophical and aesthetic notes, especially from the period 1900-1912, betray a perceptible influence of Swedenborgian ideas. Prus's reflections, which he wrote down systematically for a very long time, address some of the key metaphysical issues, ie. the psychic and physiological aspects of man's nature, the question of universal patterns of correspondence and the related idea of man as microcosm (homo maximus).
