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Informationen zum Autor Antal Szerb was born in Budapest in 1901. Though of Jewish descent, he was baptised at an early age and remained a lifelong Catholic. He rapidly established himself as a formidable scholar, through studies of Ibsen and Blake and histories of English, Hungarian and world literature. He was a prolific essayist and reviewer, ranging across all the major European languages. Debarred by successive Jewish laws from working in a university, he was subjected to increasing persecution, and finally murdered in a forced labour camp in 1945. Pushkin Press publishes his novels The Pendragon Legend , Oliver VII and his masterpiece Journey by Moonlight , as well as the historical study The Queen´s Necklace and Love in a Bottle and Other Stories . Vorwort A riotous literary pastiche from the 1930s, in which a young Hungarian scholar confronts dark forces in a Welsh castle shrouded in mystery Zusammenfassung "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 soirée a young Hungarian scholar, Dr János Bátky, is introduced to the Earl of Gwynedd, a reclusive eccentric who is the subject of strange rumours. Invited to the family seat, Pendragon Castle in North Wales, Bátky receives a mysterious phone call warning him not to go. Once there, nothing is quite as it seems... Antal Szerb´s first novel is a gently satirical blend of gothic and romantic genres, crossed with a murder mystery to produce a fast-moving and often hilarious romp. But beneath the surface, Szerb´s steely intelligence poses disturbingly modern questions about the nature of self and reality.