The fiction of George Barr McCutcheon (1866-1928) proved so popular in his day that he, along with Anthony Hope, the author of The Prisoner of Zenda, invented a whole new genre, now called the "Graustarkian novel," a charming product of a more innocent time when the Balkans could be the scene of adventurous romances set in imaginary countries. McCutcheon's Graustark no doubt borders Hope's Ruritania and Avram Davidson's more recent Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania. It was a place where an American adventurer could find himself or herself adrift, but rapidly caught up in intrigues, captures and escapes, and the perilously-hinged destiny of (at the very least) a royal throne or two. The Prince of Graustark (1914) is the one entrty in this best-selling series, which also includes Graustark, Truxton King, and Beverly of Graustark. |
