Faraon is the fourth and last major novel by the Polish writer Boleslaw Prus (1847-1912). Composed over a year in 1894-95, it was the sole historical novel by an author who had earlier disapproved of historical novels on the ground that they inevitably distort history. Pharaoh has been described by Czeslaw Milosz as a "novel on... mechanism[s] of state power and, as such, ... probably unique in world literature of the nineteenth century.... Prus, [in] selecting the reign of 'Pharaoh Ramses XIII' in the eleventh century BCE, sought a perspective that was detached from... pressures of [topicality] and censorship. Through his analysis of the dynamics of an ancient Egyptian society, he... suggest[s] an archetype of the struggle for power that goes on within any state."