On the eve of WWII, a young con artist is determined to reclaim his lost noble heritage and ingeniously worms his way into the aristocracy becoming Count von Ludberg of the Kingdom of Moravia. He gains wealth, power, and the love of a mysteriously spiritual woman. But with great power comes great responsibility, and the count must risk all to save the kingdom from war. Will the nobility survive? Or is it the end of an era?
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115,000 words
EDITORIAL REVIEWS:
"The passionate desire of the East European peoples to direct their own destinies has aroused unprecedented interest among Americans about that troubled area. In response to this interest and to satisfy his belief that there is a need in America for the literature of East Europe, B. D. Benedict has written a classic work of fiction about the little understood region.
He placed this extraordinary story in the fictional Kingdom of Moravia, which lies somewhere in the triangle between Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. During his research trip through Eastern European, Benedict met and spoke to many Old World survivors. He gathered their life stories in the villages, towns and castles of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Austria, and even in the former estate of Adolph Hitler in Obersalzburg, West Germany - the very places of his story. Many actual facts and events from pre-war and post-war history are woven into the plot. It is a moving story about the last days of a once mighty and noble society of Eastern Europe. After lasting for more than a thousand years, they disappeared almost overnight, as though they never existed
It would be difficult to place THE LAST NOBLEMAN into any known literary style or to extract from it a lucid summary. It is, however, definitely a return to romanticism on a grand scale Benedict obviously writes for the masses, avoiding 'highbrow idiom' to present the mystery of life in explicable terms. Yet he allows a more intellectually oriented second story to flow between the lines.
When the author asked me to do the final editing of his original, I was pleasantly shocked by both the style and content. Now I understand better why he is one of the best-read authors in his native Europe, where many] of his books have been published and sold into the millions. I heartily recommend this extraordinary book to any reader who would like to know more about the lives and times of fascinating people in an era now lost, as told in an entertaining and highly original way."
- George E. Turner, Editor-in-Chief of AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER magazine, Hollywood 1986