Of Czech ancestry, Albert Henry Wratislaw (1821–92) was educated at Rugby and Cambridge, and later became a prominent English public-school headmaster. At Cambridge he became interested in the literature and history of Bohemia and in 1849 he travelled there for the first time, quickly becoming proficient in the language. Upon his return home he began a lifetime of immersion in Czech literature. Published in 1862, this book was the first translation into English of a major Czech prose work. It is the vivid true story of a Bohemian nobleman's journey to, imprisonment in, and return from Constantinople in the late sixteenth century. Wratislaw's translation and brief introduction to Bohemian history proved popular and helped bring Czech literature and history to a wider audience.