Janos Arany, a Hungarian poet, born at Nagy-Szalonta, in the county of Bihar, in 1817. He is the son of a poor Protestant, who educated him for the church. After leaving college he roamed for a while with a troop of strolling players, and then returned to Szalonta and supported himself as a teacher of Latin. In 1843, the Kisfaludy society having offered a prize for the best popular epic, Arany won it by his poem, Az clveszett alkotmany (" The Lost Constitution"). In 1847 he sent to'the same society the first part of his greatest production, the trilogy Toldi. The society gave the author more than the stipulated price, and had it printed at their expense. In February, 1848, appeared his Murany ostroma ("Siege of Murany"). Since 1848 his chief literary works have been Katalin (1850), the second part of Toldi (1854), two volumes of lyric poems (1857), and another trilogy, Buda hala-la, the first part of which appeared in 1864.