Graustark

Graustark is a fictional country in Eastern Europe used as a setting for several novels by George Barr McCutcheon. Graustark's neighbors, which also figure into the stories, are Axphain to the north and Dawsbergen to the south.

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Graustark is described as a mountainous country with an area of approximately 800 square miles (2,000 km²); there is at least one reference in the books that fixes its location as somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains near Romania. On the other hand, in Graustark it is said to be threatened with reduction to being only 25 miles wide by 150 miles long (3750 square miles) and in Truxton King is said to provide a shorter route from St. Petersburg to Afghanistan. Graustark's capital city, Edelweiss, is accessible by train from Vienna. The mountain town of Ganlook is near the border with Axphain, Graustark's traditional enemy. Graustark is ruled as a principality and its unit of currency is called the gavvo, worth $1.40 at the time of the novel Truxton King. Graustarkian is the native language of the people, although Americanized English is universally spoken among the educated classes and is the everyday language of the royal family and court.

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The Graustark novels are stories of court intrigue, royal disguise, and romance similar to Anthony Hope's 1894 novel, The Prisoner of Zenda, and its sequels. They were popular best-sellers at the time they were published and the original editions are still readily available in used book shops. The novels gave their name to a fictional genre called Graustarkian: this genre contains tales of romance and intrigue usually featuring titled characters in small, fictional, Central European countries.

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The novels in the series are:

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• Graustark (1901) Gutenberg text
• Beverly of Graustark (1904) Gutenberg text
• Truxton King (1909) Gutenberg etext in HTML
• The Prince of Graustark (1914) Gutenberg text
• East of the Setting Sun (1924)
• The Inn of the Hawk and Raven (1927)
Graustark: History of Graustark ►



 

Fictional country: A fictional country is a country that is made up, and does not exist in real life. Fictional lands appear most commonly as settings or subjects of literature or of movies....

Eastern Europe: Eastern Europe as a region has several alternative definitions, whereby it can denote:...

George Barr McCutcheon: George Barr McCutcheon (1866–1928) was an American novelist and playwright....