Lajos Zilahy was the leading Hungarian novelist of the 20th century and his extraordinary recreations of the momentous public events and the passionate private lives of his characters form a unique portrait of Central European life. The Dukays are the oldest aristocratic family in Hungary and this is the tale of their inexorable decline after the First World War. It is the story of Zia Dukay, youngest of Count Dupi's daughters, a modern girl born into feudal splendour in the immense family castle of Ararat, and married with medieval pomp. Not since Scarlett O'Hara has there been so courageous a heroine, so determined to survive the wreck of family fortunes with the man she loves. It is also the story of Zia's sister Christina, romantically involved with the deposed Hapsburg king; of her brother Georgy, who leaves for America, and of Janos, who becomes a Nazi. The whole saga is told with a great richness of detail that never clogs the tumultuous narrative. During his lifetime Zilahy was a hugely popular novelist throughout Europe but his books have been out of print in English for several decades. The Dukays is the second volume in his great trilogy which started with Century in Scarlet (published in Prion's Lost Treasures series in February 2001).