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Black Diamonds

A Novel

by Mór Jókai

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Pages: 290

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About this book

A solitary explorer steers a boat across a dark pool beneath a coal mine, studying fossils, crystals and the strange rhythm of the rising water. Mór Jókai opens Black Diamonds with this dangerous underground investigation, where a safety lamp and close observation stand between the searcher and disaster. The English translation by Frances A. Gerard brings together scientific curiosity, mining life and the rivalries of a Hungarian novel.

Above ground, the social world has hazards of its own. In Pesth, Marquis Salista boasts to club acquaintances about a coming duel with Ivan, a learned man whose skill and standing the marquis dismisses. The contrast between the cavern and the club gives readers two distinct kinds of tension: the effort to understand natural forces and the pressure of pride, rank and reputation.

About the author

Mór Jókai

Mór Jókai (1825-1904), also known as Maurus Jókai, was Hungary's most popular and prolific novelist and a leading voice of its Romantic era. A participant in the 1848 revolution, he went on to write more than a hundred novels celebrating Hungarian history, landscape, and national character.