The Pendragon Legend

Len Rix (Translator)

ISBN 10: 1805330667 / ISBN 13: 9781805330660

Published by Pushkin Press, 2024

About this Item

Len Rix (Translator), Pushkin Press. "An absolute treat. Szerb is a master novelist, a comedian whose powers transcend time and language" Nicholas Lezard, GuardianAt an end-of-season London soiree a young Hungarian scholar, Dr Janos Batky, 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, Batky 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.

Seller Inventory # 9781805330660-RETAIL

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Pendragon Legend
• Publisher: Pushkin Press
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1805330667
• ISBN 13: 9781805330660
• Binding: Paperback
• Book Type: Paperback

About this title

Synopsis

While visiting a Welsh castle, a young scholar finds himself at the center of occult rituals and a murder mystery in this “absolute treat” of a gothic detective story (The Guardian)

At an end-of-the London season soiree, the young Hungarian scholar-dilettante Janos Batky is introduced to the Earl of Gwynedd, a reclusive eccentric who is the subject of strange rumors. Invited to the family seat, Pendragon Castle in North Wales, Batky receives a mysterious phone-call warning him not to go. But go he does, plunging him into a bizarre world of mysticism and romance, animal experimentation, and planned murder. His quest to solve the central mystery takes him down strange byways-old libraries and warehouse cellars, Welsh mountains and underground tombs.
 
The Pendragon Legend is Antal Szerb's first novel and is a gently satirical blend of gothic and romantic genres, crossed with the murder mystery format to produce a fast-moving and often hilarious romp. But beneath the surface, the reader becomes aware of a steely intelligence probing moral, psychological, and religious questions.

About the Author

Antal Szerb was born in 1901 into a cultivated Budapest family of Jewish descent. Graduating in German and English, he rapidly established himself as a prolific scholar, publishing books on drama and poetry, studies of Ibsen and Blake, and histories of English, Hungarian and world literature. His first novel, The Pendragon Legend, was written in 1934. Journey by Moonlight appeared in 1937, followed in 1943 by The Queen's Necklace and various volumes of novellas. He died in a forced-labour camp at Balf in January 1945.