[Gutenberg 37286] • Tales From Jókai

At the general meeting of the Hungarian Academy on October 17, 1843, the secretary reported that the 100-florin prize for the best drama of the year had been awarded to Karoly Obernik's Four es por (Squire and Boor), but that another drama, entitled Zsido fiu (The Jew Boy), had been honourably mentioned, and, indeed, in the opinion of one of the judges, Joseph Bajza, was scarcely inferior to the prize-play itself. The author of the latter piece was a youth of eighteen, Maurus Jokai, a law student at Kecskemet, whose literary essays had already begun to attract some notice in the local papers. That name is now one of the most illustrious in Hungary, and one of the best known in Europe. Maurus Jokai was born at Rev-Komarom on February 18, 1825. His father, Joseph, a scion of the Asva branch of the old Calvinist Jokay family, was a lawyer by profession, but a lawyer who had seen something of the world, and loved art and letters. His mother came of the noble Pulays. She was venerated by her son, and is the prototype of the downright, masterful housewives, with warm hearts, capable heads, and truant sons, who so frequently figure in his pages. Maurus was their third and youngest child and the pet of the whole family. He seems to have been a super-sensitive, very affectionate lad, always fonder of books than of games, but liking best of all to listen to the innumerable tales his father had to tell of the Napoleonic wars, in which he himself had borne a humble part, or of the still more marvellous exploits and legends of the old Magyar heroes. It was doubtless from his father that Maurus inherited much of his literary and artistic talents.