They Were Found Wanting

The tale of the two Transylvanian cousins, their loves, and their very different fortunes continues in this second volume of the Transylvanian trilogy. Balint Abady is forced to part from the beautiful and unhappily married Adrienne Uzdy, while Lazlo Gyeroffy is rapidly heading for self-destruction through excessive drinking and his own fecklessness. Politicians, quarreling among themselves and stubbornly ignoring their countrymen's real needs, are still pursuing their vendetta with the Habsburg rule of Hungary from Vienna. Meanwhile, they fail to notice how the Great Powersthrough such events as Austria's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908are moving ever closer to the conflagration of 19141918 that will destroy their world forever. Contrasting a life of privilege and corruption with the lives and problems of an expatriate Romanian peasant minority whom Balint tries to help, this portrait is an unrivalled evocation of a rich and fascinating aristocratic world oblivious of its impending demise.

Miklós Bánffy was a diplomat, a member of parliament, and a foreign minister in the early 1920s. He signed the peace treaty with the U.S. that granted Hungary's admission to the League of Nations. He is the author of The Phoenix Land and volumes one, two, and three of the Transylvanian trilogy: They Were Counted, They Were Found Wanting and They Were Divided. Patrick Leigh Fermor is the author of numerous travel books, including Between the Wood and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople, A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople, and A Time to Keep Silence. Patrick Thursfield is a translator and a former Times journalist and television writer. Katlin Bánffy-Jelen is a translator and the daughter of Miklós Bánffy. They are the cowinners of the Weidenfeld Translation Prize for their translation of volume three of the Transylvanian trilogy, They Were Divided.