**"Washington Post" Best Books of 2013**
The celebrated TRANSYLVANIAN TRILOGY by Count Miklos Banffy is a stunning historical epic set in the lost world of the Hungarian aristocracy just before World War I. Written in the 1930s and first discovered by the English-speaking world after the fall of communism in Hungary, Banffy's novels were translated in the late 1990s to critical acclaim and now appear for the first time in hardcover.
"They Were Counted, "the first novel in the trilogy, introduces us to a decadent, frivolous, and corrupt society unwittingly bent on its own destruction during the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Banffy's lush depiction of an opulent lost paradise focuses on two upper-class cousins who couldn't be more different: Count Balint Abady, a liberal politician who compassionately defends his homeland's downtrodden Romanian peasants, and his dissipated cousin Laszlo, whose life is a whirl of parties, balls, hunting, and gambling. "They Were Counted" launches a story that brims with intrigues, love affairs, duels, murder, comedy, and tragedy, set against the rugged and ravishing scenery of Transylvania. Along with the other two novels in the trilogy--"They Were Found Wanting "and "They Were Divided"--it combines a Proustian nostalgia for the past, insight into a collapsing empire reminiscent of the work of Joseph Roth, and the drama and epic sweep of Tolstoy.

**"Washington Post" Best Books of 2013**
The celebrated TRANSYLVANIAN TRILOGY by Count Miklos Banffy is a stunning historical epic set in the lost world of the Hungarian aristocracy just before World War I. Written in the 1930s and first discovered by the English-speaking world after the fall of communism in Hungary, Banffy's novels were translated in the late 1990s to critical acclaim and appear here for the first time in hardcover.
"They Were Found Wanting "and "They Were Divided, "the second and third novels in the trilogy, continue the story of the two aristocratic cousins introduced in "They Were Counted "as they navigate a dissolute society teetering on the brink of catastrophe. Count Balint Abady, a liberal politician who defends his homeland's downtrodden Romanian peasants, loses his beautiful lover, Adrienne, who is married to a sinister and dangerously insane man, while his cousin Laszlo loses himself in reckless and self-destructive addictions. Meanwhile, no one seems to notice the gathering clouds that are threatening the Austro-Hungarian Empire and that will soon lead to the brutal dismemberment of their country. Set amid magnificent scenery of wild forests, snowcapped mountains, and ancient castles, THE TRANSYLVANIAN TRILOGY combines a Proustian nostalgia for a lost world, insight into a collapsing empire reminiscent of the work of Joseph Roth, and the drama and epic sweep of Tolstoy.