They Were Counted (£0.99 UK), the first novel in the Transylvanian Trilogy by Miklos Banffy, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $7.19).Book Description
Painting an unrivalled portrait of the vanished world of pre-1914 Hungary, this story is told through the eyes of two young Transylvanian cousins, Count Balint Abády and Count László Gyeroffy. Shooting parties in great country houses, turbulent scenes in parliament, and the luxury of 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. Abády 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. The first book in a trilogy published before World War II, it was rediscovered after the fall of Communism in Hungary and this edition contains a new foreword.
They Were Found Wanting (£0.99 UK), the second novel in the Transylvanian Trilogy by Miklos Banffy, is the second Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $7.19).Book Description
The tale of the two Transylvanian cousins, their loves, and their very different fortunes continues in this second volume of the Transylvanian trilogy. Balint Abady is forced to part from the beautiful and unhappily married Adrienne Uzdy, while Lazlo Gyeroffy is rapidly heading for self-destruction through excessive drinking and his own fecklessness. Politicians, quarreling among themselves and stubbornly ignoring their countrymen's real needs, are still pursuing their vendetta with the Habsburg rule of Hungary from Vienna. Meanwhile, they fail to notice how the Great Powers-through such events as Austria's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908-are moving ever closer to the conflagration of 1914-1918 that will destroy their world forever. Contrasting a life of privilege and corruption with the lives and problems of an expatriate Romanian peasant minority whom Balint tries to help, this portrait is an unrivalled evocation of a rich and fascinating aristocratic world oblivious of its impending demise.
They Were Divided (£0.99 UK), the concluding volume in the Transylvanian Trilogy by Miklos Banffy, is the third Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (the US edition is $7.19).Book Description
The final part of Banffy's trilogy reflects the rapidly disintegrating course of events in Central Europe. In the foreground the lives of Balint, with his ultimately unhappy love for Adrienne, and his fatally flawed cousin, Laszlo Gyeroffy, who dies in poverty and neglect, are told with humour and a bitter-sweet nostalgia for a paradise lost through folly. The sinister and fast moving events in Montenegro, the Balkan wars, the apparent encirclement of Germany and Austria-Hungary by Britain, France and Russia, and finally the assassination of Franz Ferdinand all lead inexorably to the youth of Hungary marching off to their death and the dismemberment of their country.
