8 h 12 minAudiobook6 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 8 h 12 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What holds love together when family, faith, and a divided land pull it apart?
In Manasseh, Mór Jókai brings you into Transylvania, a land where many peoples, languages, and faiths live side by side. This romance places private feeling under public pressure. Love meets the claims of family, belief, and loyalty, while conflict reaches into the lives people hope to share.
Jókai tells his story with color, warmth, and strong feeling. The historical backdrop matters as much as the romance: this is a world where belonging is complex and personal choices carry weight. For readers drawn to Central Europe, the setting offers a place to linger, not merely scenery to pass through.
What you’ll discover
- Love under pressure Follow a romance where private hopes meet family duty and the demands of troubled times.
- A land of differences Enter a Transylvania shaped by many peoples, with languages and faiths living side by side.
- Faith and belonging Explore how belief and loyalty place competing claims on the heart.
- Color and warmth Settle into vivid description and strong feeling, carried by Jókai's confident storytelling.
- History close to home See public conflict become personal as love and family face the pressures of their world.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this if you like romantic adventure with real history behind it, journeys across Europe, mountain villages, strong heroines, and a hero who strives to answer threats with calm and kindness.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A rescue on the train to Rome
- Holy Week makes a bond that grows
- A secret weapon in the Colosseum
- A prison palace with a secret door
- Through a country at war
- A card game that buys peace
- A new life in Toroczko
- Kindness across a divided land
- Faith lived through work
Who’s who
- Manasseh AdorjanA Unitarian painter from Transylvania who hates revenge and violence, and who wants to bring his people peace and the woman he loves home.
- Blanka, Princess CagliariA young Hungarian noblewoman, trapped in an arranged marriage, who seeks freedom in Rome and finds courage and love.
- Benjamin VajdarThe prince's secretary, raised by the Adorjans, a charming schemer who wants rank and wealth at any price.
- Prince CagliariAn aging, smooth nobleman who hides greed and cruelty behind fatherly words and has a dancer for a mistress.
- Marchioness CaldarivaA famous dancer called Cyrene, clever and dangerous, who plays both sides in Rome and hopes to become a princess.
- Aaron AdorjanManasseh's short, strong, joking brother, a loyal Szekler who would rather defend his family with guns than prayers.
- Anna AdorjanManasseh's twin sister, cheerful and kind, who still loves the man who left her at the altar.
- ZenobiaThe proud daughter of the Wallachian Ciprianu, who becomes a friend to Blanka while her family and the Adorjans stand on opposite sides.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 8 h 12 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 6 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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25 languages, side by side
Read and hear Manassé in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Manassé
by Mór Jókai · 1877
A painter and a hunted princess meet on a train to Rome, and one secret paragraph changes both lives.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Can a crowded train compartment change a life? In the spring of 1848, a Hungarian painter named Manasseh Adorjan helps three weary travelers find seats on their way to Rome.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A rescue on the train to Rome
A chance meeting on a crowded Italian train sets the whole story moving. Manasseh Adorjan, a Unitarian from Transylvania, finds seats for three Hungarian travelers, among them Princess Blanka Cagliari and her lawyer, Gabriel Zimandy. They are heading to Rome, where Blanka hopes the Church will end her unhappy marriage.
The prince's secretary, Benjamin Vajdar, follows Blanka. When he enters the compartment, Manasseh orders him out. The travelers leave at Bologna and cross the Apennines, escaping his pursuit.
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What is Manasseh by Mór Jókai about?
It follows Manasseh Adorjan, a Transylvanian Unitarian painter, and Princess Blanka Cagliari. They meet on a train to Rome in 1848, fall in love, and travel to his mountain home, where they face revolution.
Who are the Unitarians in Manasseh?
They are Christians who believe in the unity of God. The book explains that many of them live in Transylvania, and its hero will not take revenge or human life except to defend home and country.
Where does the story take place?
It begins on an Italian railway and in Rome during Holy Week, moves to the forests and mountains of Transylvania and the iron-mining village of Toroczko, and later reaches Vienna and northern Italy.
The author
Mór Jókai
1825–1904 · Hungarian novelist
Mór Jókai was a Hungarian novelist, short-story writer and journalist. He was born in Komárom in 1825 and died in Budapest in 1904. He wrote in Hungarian and published novels throughout the nineteenth century. His novels include The Golden Man, published in 1872. He also wrote plays.
More by Mór Jókai
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