Although he wrote a range of works, he had his greatest success as a historical novelist, particularly with Eclipse of the Crescent Moon and Slave of the Huns.

His first successes were the satirical "Göre Gábor" letters on rural life, works which he later repudiated.

Around the turn of the century, he started to tackle historical themes in writing, which resulted in a series of fine novels.

In 2005 this book was voted "the most popular novel of Hungary" by viewers of the television programme Big Read (A Nagy Könyv).

Although these two novels are very well known in Hungary, translations into English and other European languages only became widely published in the late 20th century.