Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/183

 THE NOVEL 169 Freneh bullet. The events of his life are faithfully narrated in Rontó Pál. In the thirties of the nineteenth century two new kinds of novel became popular, which now surpass in importanée and permanence all the others. They are the social and the historical novel. By 183 2 the society of the capital had begun to organise itself, and the first social novel appeared in that year. The author of The Bélteky Fa mil)' was ANDREW FÁY (1784- 1861). This story gave expression to the same ideas of progress, and of a great and prosperous future, with which Széchenyi was inflaming the souls of men. The old, inactive H ungarian nohles are contrasted with the new generation of workers, toiling at the foundations of Hun­ gary's future greatness. Andrew Fáy was equally esteemed as a mao and as an author of didatic fables. He was a friend and fellow­ worker of Széchenyi. The historical novel sprang up almost simultaneously with the social novel. Its first exponent in Hungary was Baron NICHOLA S JóSIKA (1794-1865). Jósika wrote under the i nfluence of Sir Walter Scott. Like Scott, Jósika was boro amidst mountainous and romantic scenery, at Tonda, in Tra nsylva nia, and gained his in­ spiration from old castles and ancient family chronicles. He was a soldier, and fo ught, like Alexander Kisfaludy, in the wars agaiost Napoleon. On returning to Hungary he began to write novels. After th e revolution he was condemned to death, but the sentence was only executed in effigy, and he Iived in exile for some time in Brussels, and afterwards in Dresden, where he died. Scott was his first model, but later on, during the time of his exi le, he to some extent írnitated the Freneh writers.