In the tumultous years that preceded the first and second World War, Zsigmond Moricz was the Hungarian writer whose approach to the problems of his country was significant because of his realistic attitude and method. Moricz had realistic predecessors, such as Lajos Tolnai, Sandor Brody, Zoltan Thury. But their works were trial balloons of literary realism. Zsigmond Moricz was the first Hungarian writer who, like Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser in America, de- A'oted his narrative talent to the presentation of individual and collective inconsistencies and sadistic realities caused by a particular social structure. He wrote novels, short stories, plays, and poems. As a poet he was inferior; even as a playwright his works are second-rate compared with his novels and short stories.