A Hungarian Nabob

Set among the vast estates of early nineteenth-century Hungary, this social novel centers on János Kárpáthy, an aging, immensely rich magnate who squanders his days on feasting, gambling, and the company of hangers-on. His fortune draws his nephew Abellino, a spendthrift Paris dandy who returns home certain the old man is dead and eager to claim the inheritance. What follows turns on a practical joke, a late marriage to the virtuous middle-class girl Fanny Mayer, and the slow awakening of a wastrel into a patron of national reform. Jókai writes with broad comedy and warm sympathy, using one household to portray a whole feudal order beginning to give way. It remains among the most celebrated works of Hungary’s greatest Romantic storyteller.