The Radetzky March

First published in 1932, this novel follows three generations of the Trotta family as the Austro-Hungarian Empire declines. A Slovenian infantry lieutenant saves the Emperor's life at Solferino and is ennobled; his son becomes a district official who worships that legend; his grandson, a cavalry officer, lives through frontier garrison boredom, debts, and the coming of the Great War. The Radetzky March of the title is the military music that marks imperial ceremony. The book is a family chronicle of loyalty to a dying state, not a campaign history of 1914.

Bound in red buckram, cover blocked in gold and black with a design by Tim Laing. Black slipcase. Red endpapers.