ABSTRACT
Sympathy for England and the English ran more widely and deeply. It also showed itself in the favourable reception, indeed extraordinary popularity, of works by English writers. The novels of Somerset Maugham were widely read in Hungary during the late 1930s. When Sándor Hunyady explored the reasons for this in an article, a response that he elicited from readers was that they liked Maugham because they liked the English-not the writer, nor even his works, but the English. Hunyady described this sentiment: ‘No doubt a goodly number of British passports could be issued around the world to people
who are not citizens of the Empire, and may not even speak any English, but deep down…sense a fellow-feeling with the English.’355
