You Pick BestYouPickBest

What is the best 19th-century Hungarian novel?

By YPB Team

Romantic epics of the reform era sit next to sly village satire and brooding confessional prose, from the century when Hungarian fiction found its voice.

  1. The Man with the Golden Touch — ranked #11
    The Man with the Golden Touch
    Mór Jókai's 1872 novel Az arany ember, about a Danube shipmaster torn between wealth and a hidden island idyll.
    1000pts
  2. A Strange Marriage — ranked #22
    A Strange Marriage
    Mikszáth's Különös házasság, published in 1900, a bitter satire of a nobleman forced into a sham marriage.
    733pts
  3. The Village Notary — ranked #33
    The Village Notary
    József Eötvös's 1845 A falu jegyzője, a reformist satire of corrupt county government seen through a village clerk.
    732pts
  4. Eclipse of the Crescent Moon — ranked #44
    Eclipse of the Crescent Moon
    Géza Gárdonyi's 1899 Egri csillagok, the beloved epic of the 1552 defence of Eger against the Ottomans.
    599pts
  5. A Hungarian Nabob — ranked #55
    A Hungarian Nabob
    Jókai's 1853 Egy magyar nábob, a sweeping portrait of a reckless gentry magnate in the Reform Era.
    599pts
  6. The Siege of Beszterce — ranked #66
    The Siege of Beszterce
    Mikszáth's 1895 Beszterce ostroma, about an eccentric count who wages a private medieval war in modern Hungary.
    599pts
  7. The Baron's Sons — ranked #77
    The Baron's Sons
    Jókai's 1869 A kőszívű ember fiai, following three brothers who defy their iron-willed father during the 1848 revolution.
    0pts
  8. Black Diamonds — ranked #88
    Black Diamonds
    Jókai's 1870 Fekete gyémántok, a coal-mining industrialist's romance and struggle against financial speculators.
    0pts
  9. Zoltán Kárpáthy — ranked #99
    Zoltán Kárpáthy
    Jókai's 1854 sequel to A Hungarian Nabob, tracing the nabob's son through the politics of the 1840s.
    0pts
  10. St. Peter's Umbrella — ranked #1010
    St. Peter's Umbrella
    Kálmán Mikszáth's 1895 Szent Péter esernyője, a warm, ironic village tale about a priest and a mysterious umbrella.
    0pts
  11. The Carthusian — ranked #1111
    The Carthusian
    Eötvös's 1839-41 A karthauzi, a melancholy confessional novel of a French aristocrat who retreats into a monastery.
    0pts

Comments