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"Perfect late night reading" JAN MORRIS "Banffy is a born
storyteller" PATRICK LEIGH FERMOR "Totally absorbing" MARTHA
KEARNEY "So evocative" SIMON JENKINS An extraordinary portrait of
the vanished world of pre-1914 Hungary, They Were Counted is an
epic story told through the eyes of two cousins, Count Balint Abady
and Count Laszlo Gyeroffy. Shooting parties in great country
houses, turbulent scenes in parliament and the luxury life in
Budapest provide the backdrop for this gripping, prescient novel,
forming a chilling indictment of upper-class frivolity and
political folly in which good manners cloak indifference and
brutality. Abady becomes aware of the plight of a group of Romanian
mountain peasants and champions their cause, while Gyeroffy
dissipates his resources at the gaming tables, mirroring the
decline of the Austro-Hungarian empire itself. This is the first
volume Banffy's trilogy, which continues with They Were Found
Wanting and They Were Divided. It was rediscovered for an
international readership after the fall of communism in Hungary.
With a Foreword by Patrick Leigh-Fermor Translated from Hungarian
by Patrick Thursfield and Katalin Banffy-Jelen WINNER OF THE
WEIDENFELD TRANSLATION PRIZE
**"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.
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