The Man with the Golden Touch (Hungarian: Az arany ember, lit.

As Jókai states in the afterword of the novel, it was based on a true story he had heard from his grand-aunt as a child.

Mihály Timár works on a ship on the Danube owned by Athanáz Brazovics,[a] a wheat merchant.

The wheat's owner, Euthym Trikalisz,[b] and his thirteen-year-old daughter Timéa are also aboard.

They stop at an undiscovered island inhabited by the widow Teréza[c] and her young daughter, Noémi.

Krisztyán takes a gold bracelet Timéa gave to Noémi, and leaves.

[g] Brazovics returns, welcomes Timéa, and accuses Timár of theft when he receives the box and learns that the ship sank.

He becomes wealthy, and tells Brazovics about making bread from the drenched wheat and selling it to the army.

Timár begins to suspect that Timéa loves someone else and tests her, telling her that he will visit Levetinc for a month.

Timár cuts down the trees to build a house, leaves the island and returns in the spring.

When Timár returns home, Athalie tells him that Timéa is unfaithful; he learns that Krisztyán is around.

Forty years later, the author visits the island; a peaceful colony lives there.

Agnes Hegan Kennard's[citation needed] English translation, with the title Timar's Two Worlds,[1] was published in 1888.

A revised edition appeared in 1975 with Corvina Press and was titled The Man with the Golden Touch.

The film versions are all titled Az aranyember, in accordance with modern spelling.