particular delight, however, in occupying myself with foreign countries,
especially with the East. There have been years when I was compelled to
choose subjects for novel-writing in foreign parts.

In English and in Hungarian literature we find a common trait in that
humor which is discovered also in the tragic; a characteristic of the
nation itself.

It is with perfect confidence and in good hope that I present my present
work (translated so faithfully) before the much-esteemed English reading
public. May God bless that home of freedom, by whose example we have
learnt how to unite the greatness of the state with the welfare of the
people.

DR. MAURUS JOKAI.

BUDAPEST, May 11th, 1898.




DR. MAURUS JOKAI

A Sketch


To a man who has earned such titles as "The Shakespeare of Hungary" and
"The Glory of Hungarian Literature"; who published in fifty years three
hundred and fifty novels, dramas, and miscellaneous works, not to
mention innumerable articles for the press that owes its freedom chiefly