A comic fable from one of the masters of twentieth-century prose ” Szerb belongs with the master novelists of the twentieth century” Paul Bailey, Daily Telegraph The bored young ruler of an idyllic Central European country plots a coup against himself & escapes to Venice in search of `real` experience. There he falls in with a team of ambitious con-men & ends up, to his own surprise, impersonating himself. In this wonderfully droll tale the king`s journey through successive levels of illusion & reality teaches him much about the world, his foreordained role in it, & himself. Once again Szerb`s gentle irony is brought to bear on some uncomfortable paradoxes of self & the human condition. Antal Szerb was born in Budapest in 1901. Though of Jewish descent, he was baptised at an early age & remained a lifelong Catholic. He rapidly established himself as a formidable scholar, through studies of Ibsen & Blake & histories of English, Hungarian & world literature. He was a prolific essayist & reviewer, ranging across all the major European languages. Debarred by successive Jewish laws from working in a university, he was subjected to increasing persecution, & finally murdered in a forced labour camp in 1945. Pushkin Press publishes his novels The Pendragon Legend, Oliver VII & his masterpiece Journey by Moonlight, as well as the historical study The Queen`s Necklace & Love in a Bottle & Other Stories.