The Deluge was first published in 1886 and it is the second volume of a three-volume series known to Poles as "The Trilogy," having been preceded by With Fire and Sword (Ogniem i mieczem, 1884) and followed by Fire in the Steppe (Pan Wolodyjowski, 1888). The novel tells a story of a fictional Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth soldier and noble Andrzej Kmicic and shows a panorama of the Commonwealth during its historical period of the Deluge, which was a part of the Northern Wars. The novel itself is in three volumes, of which this is the first.