Kraszewski attended the University of Wilno (now V. Kapsukas State University), was imprisoned in 1830 on a charge of conspiracy against the Russian government, and was released in 1832. From 1834 to 1859 he lived in Volhynia (now in Ukraine), where he wrote, farmed, and did social work. He was also involved in editorial work during this period. From 1841 he edited, and from 1849 to 1852 edited and published, the Ateneum review. Between 1859 and 1862 (by which time he had returned to Warsaw), he edited the daily Gazeta Codzienna (later Gazeta Polska). Forced to leave Warsaw in January 1863 by Count Aleksander Wielopolski (Wielopolski, Count Aleksander) (head of the civil government), whom he had offended in an editorial, Kraszewski settled in Dresden, Germany. In 1883 the German government arrested him on a charge of espionage on behalf of France and in 1884 sentenced him to three and one-half years' imprisonment in the fortress at Magdeburg. Released in 1885, he went to Geneva, where he died a few years later.

Kraszewski's literary output may have no equal in literary history. His works fill more than 600 volumes and include 9 novels dealing with serfdom, 7 novels set in Poland under the rule of the Saxon dynasty during the 18th century, and a cycle of 29 novels covering all of Polish history. For many years the latter substituted for regular history courses in partitioned Poland. Kraszewski played an important role in making the Polish historical novel popular with the reading public. Aiming at average readers, he appealed to the national interest in history and social problems, which he presented in fairly simple plots with easy-to-identify characters and everyday situations. Thus his novels paved the way for more sophisticated literary forms promoted by authors of the Realist (realism) period, writers such as Henryk Sienkiewicz (Sienkiewicz, Henryk), Bolesław Prus (Prus, Bolesław), and Eliza Orzeszkowa (Orzeszkowa, Eliza).