Author Description

"Szomorú Napok" was written in the darkest days of Maurus Jókai's life, and reflects the depression of a naturally generous and sanguine nature bowed down, for a time, beneath an almost unendurable load of unmerited misfortune. The story was written shortly after the collapse of the Magyar Revolution of 1848-49, when Hungary lay crushed and bleeding under the heel of triumphant Austria and her Russian ally; when, deprived of all her ancient political rights and liberties, she had been handed over to the domination of the stranger, and saw her best and noblest sons either voluntary exiles, or suspected rebels under police surveillance. Jókai also was in the category of the proscribed. He had played a conspicuous part in the Revolution; he had served his country with both pen and sword; and, now that the bloody struggle was over, and the last Honved army had surrendered to the Russians, Jókai, disillusioned and broken-hearted, was left to piece together again as best he might, the shattered fragments of a ruined career.