''Journey by Moonlight'' ( hu, Utas és holdvilág, literally "Traveler and Moonlight") is a 1937 novel by Hungarian writer

Antal Szerb Antal Szerb (1 May 1901, Budapest – 27 January 1945, Balf) was a noted Hungarian scholar and writer. He is generally considered to be one of the major Hungarian writers of the 20th century. Life and career Szerb was born in 1901 to assimilate ...

. It is among the best-known novels in contemporary Hungarian literature. According to English literary critic

Nicholas Lezard Nicholas Andrew Selwyn LezardThe Cambridge University List of Members up to 31 December 1991, Cambridge University Press, p. 814 is an English journalist, author and literary critic. Background and education The Lezard family went from London to Ki ...

, it is "one of the greatest works of modern European literature ..I can't remember the last time I did this: finished a novel and then turned straight back to page one to start it over again. That is, until I read ''Journey by Moonlight''."

Plot

The novel follows Mihály, a

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

native from a

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

family on his honeymoon in Italy as he encounters and attempts to make sense of his past. The novel features his romantic figure, aloof and poetic, but struggling to break with an adolescent rebelliousness which he tries to quell under respectable bourgeois conformism, but also with the disturbing attraction of an erotic death-wish. Some of the neurotic episodes that Mihály experiences throughout the story have been understood as motifs related to Freudian psychoanalysis, which had been especially influential at the time in Hungary.

Characters

*Mihály – a native resident of

*Erzsi – his wife *János Szepetneki, Ervin, Tamás and Éva Ulpius: Mihály's old friends *Zoltán Pataki: Erzsi's first husband

Release details

*1937, Hungary, Révai, published 1937, paperback, , (first Hungarian edition) *1994, New York, USA, Püski-Corvin Books,, Library of Congress Number 93-84996, published 1994, paperback (as
The Traveler
, translated by Peter Hargitai (this novel's first English edition) *2001, London, Pushkin Press , published 1 May 2001, paperback (as "Journey by Moonlight", by

Len Rix Len Rix is a translator of Hungarian literature into English, noted for his translations of Antal Szerb's '' Journey by Moonlight'' and ''The Pendragon Legend'' and of Magda Szabó's '' The Door'' and ''Katalin Street''. Early life and education ...

(this translation's second edition) *2003, USA, Authors Choice Press, , hardcover, as "The Traveler", translated by Peter Hargitai *2006, London, Pushkin Press , published 27 February 2006, paperback (as "Journey by Moonlight") *2012, Zagreb, Croatia, , published 2012, Naklada OceanMore, paperback (as "Putnik i mjesečina" / "Traveler and Moonlight" – Croatian first edition) The novel has been translated into German, French, Italian, English, Spanish, Dutch, Slovene, Swedish, and Croatian.

Plot

Characters

Release details

References

See also