The Pendragon Legend
Author | : Antal Szerb |
Publisher | : Pushkin Press Classics |
Total Pages | : 241 |
Release | : 2024-11-05 |
ISBN-10 | : 9781805330660 |
ISBN-13 | : 1805330667 |
Rating | : 4/5 (60 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: 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.