They Were Divided

A Tolstoyan portrait of the end days of the Austro-Hungarian empire . . . compulsively readable. * Guardian * A masterpiece, in any language. * Daily Telegraph * Full of arresting descriptions, beautiful evocations of scenery and wise political and moral insights. * Spectator * So enjoyable, so irresistible, it is the author's keen political intelligence and refusal to indulge in self-deception which give it an unusual distinction. It's a novel that, read at the gallop for sheer enjoyment, is likely carry to along. But many will want to return to it for a second, slower reading, to savour its subleties and relish the author's intelligence. -- Allan Massie * Scotsman * Just about as good as any fiction I have ever read, like Anna Karenina and War and Peace rolled into one. Love, sex, town, country, money, power, beauty, and the pathos of a society which cannot prevent its own destruction - all are here -- Charles Moore * Daily Telegraph * Fascinating. He writes about his quirky border lairds and squires and the highgt misty forest ridges and valleys of Transylvania with something of the ache that Czeslaw Milosz bring to the contemplation of this lost Eden. -- W. L. Webb * Guardian *

Count Miklos Banffy (1873-1950) was variously a diplomat, MP and foreign minister in 1921-22 when he signed the peace treaty with the United State and obtained Hungary's admission to the League of Nations. He was responsible for organising the last Habsburg coronation, that of King Karl in 1916. His famous "The Writing on the Wall" trilogy was first published in Budapest in the 1930s, and rediscovered for the international market after the fall of communism. This epic work has now been translated into ten languages.