The Queen's Necklace (Pushkin Blues) - Tapa blanda

"A sparkling slice of 18th century life." - Paul Bailey, Independent "An 18th-century scam involving Marie Antoinette, an ambitious jeweller, a charlatan doctor and a countess on the make is the subject of this engaging book. Antal Szerb was a Hungarian novelist who wrote what he called this 'real history' in 1942 and died in a labour camp in 1945. Knowing his fate lends poignancy to his witty, learned and illuminating portrayal of the ancien regime on the brink of the Revolution." - Katie Owen, Telegraph's Pick of the Paperbacks "The Queen's Necklace is a wonderful book; both thoughtful and blasting, and another revelation of Szerb's light-footed erudition." - Ali Smith 'Szerb belongs with the master novelists of the 20th century." - Paul Bailey, Daily Telegraph "May Szerb's entry into our literary pantheon be definitive." - Alberto Manguel, Financial Times "Szerb is a master novelist whose powers transcend time and language." - Nicholas Lezard, Guardian

'A sparkling slice of eighteenth-century life' Paul Bailey, Independent In August 1785 Paris buzzed with scandal. An eminent churchman, a notorious charlatan, a female fraudster, a part-time prostitute and the hated Queen herself were all involved. At its heart was the most expensive diamond necklace ever assembled - and the web of fraud, folly and self-delusion it had inspired. In Szerb's last major work, a witty and often surprising account of events, the story is used as a standpoint from which to survey the entire age. Written in war-torn Hungary in the early 1940s, it constitutes a remarkable gesture of defiance against the brutal world in which the writer lived and died.