A typically brilliant, ironic and moving travelogue by one of the twentieth century's greatest writers In August 1936 a Hungarian writer in his mid-thirties arrives by train in Venice, on a journey overshadowed by the coming war and charged with intense personal nostalgia. Aware that he might never[...]

An NYRB Classics Original
The trouble begins in Venice, the first stop on Erzsi and Mihaly's honeymoon tour of Italy. Here Erzsi discovers that her new husband prefers wandering back alleys on his own to her company. The trouble picks up in Ravenna, where a hostile man zooms up on a motorcycle a[...]

"An absolute treat...Szerb is a master novelist, a comedian whose powers transcend time and language" Nicholas Lezard, Guardian At an end-of-season London soiree a young Hungarian scholar, Dr Janos Batky, is introduced to the Earl of Gwynedd, a reclusive eccentric who is the subject of strange rumou[...]

Anxious to please his bourgeois father, Mihaly has joined the family firm in Budapest. Pursued by nostalgia for his bohemian youth, he seeks escape in marriage to Erzsi, not realising that she has chosen him as a means to her own rebellion. On their honeymoon in Italy Mihaly 'loses' his bride at a p[...]

Vuonna 1933 mystiikkaa tutkiva unkarilainen tohtori János Bátky saa odottamattoman kutsun jaarli Pendragonin kartanoon. Bátky päätyy todistamaan outoja tapahtumia: hänen aseestaan katoavat luodit, jaarli yritetään murhata ja linnan pihalla karauttelee outo ratsumies. Bátky joutuu Pendragoni[...]