József Kármán

[1] His sensibility, social charm, liberal ideas (he was one of the earliest of the Magyar freemasons) and personal beauty opened the doors of the best houses to him.

He was generally known as the Pest Alcibiades, and was especially at home in the salons of the Protestant magnates.

He maintained that Pest, not Pozsony should be the literary center of Hungary, and in 1794 founded the first Hungarian quarterly, Urania, but it met with little support and ceased to exist in 1795, after three volumes had appeared.

[1] The most important contribution to Urania was his sentimental novel, Fanni hagyományai, much in the style of La nouvelle Héloise and Sorrows of Young Werther, the most exquisite product of Hungarian prose in the 18th century and one of the finest psychological romances in the literature.

Kármán also wrote two satires and fragments of an historical novel, while his literary program is set forth in his dissertation A nemzet csinosodása ("Beautification of the Nation").