Cyprian Kamil Norwid was born in 1821 near Warsaw. Largely self-taught, he left Poland at the age of 21, moving widely around Europe, befriended by Chopin among others, before travelling to America. Persistently dogged by financial crises, he was forced to return to Paris in 1854. There he spent the rest of his life, dying in a hostel for Polish insurrection veterans in Ivry in 1883.