In the monography Anton Ocvirk from the edition Famous Slovenians, its authors, prof.dr. Tone Smolej and prof. Majda Stanovnik, primarily give an account of Ocvirk’s youth and his life in Vienna (1907 – 1928), along with his university studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Ljubljana (1928 – 1931). A comprehensive chapter is devoted to Ocvirk’s master studies in Paris where he met some of most prominent writers (A.Gide) and comparative literature professors (F. Baldensperger, P. Hazard) who influenced his horizons. A comprehensive account of Ocvirk’s editorial work in Ljubljansko zvono magazine (The Bell of Ljubljana) is also given (1933 – 1935). The authors paid a special attention to Ocvirk’s work The Theory of History of Comparative Literature (1936) that was the third work on the comparative literature in the world. The first part is concluded by Ocvirk’s employment at the Faculty of Philosophy in Ljubljana and his pre-war activities with the Resistance.
In post-war decades Ocvirk’s intensive individual and team work was simultaneously rolling out in various areas so the book is divided into topical chapters. His lectures at the World Literature Department, and later after his return to Comparative Literature and Literature Theory Department (1949 – 1971) were described based on real-life data and testimonials of his carefully chosen listeners who later became prominent authors and editors. Founding and editing of Collective Works of Slovenian Poetry and Prose Writers (1946 – 1980) comprises a more exhaustive presentation of Ocvirk’s gradual issuing of the opus by Srečko Kosovel that achieved great success. This was followed by an arduous collecting and editing of Slavic Magazine (1948 – 1963), a successful creation and finishing the work A Hundred Novels (1964 – 1977) with a hundred of original secondary studies, A Collection of Works for the occasion of the 80th birthday of Josip Vidmar (1975), originally founded Literary Lexicon and finally a topical collection of work under the programmatic name of Literary Art Between the History and Theory (1978 – 1980).