Szerb was born in 1901 to assimilated Jewish parents in Budapest, but baptized Catholic. He studied Hungarian, German and later English, obtaining a doctorate in 1924. From 1924 to 1929 he lived in France and Italy, also spending a year in London, England.

As a student he published essays on Georg Trakl and Stefan George, and quickly established a formidable reputation as a scholar, writing erudite studies of William Blake and Henrik Ibsen among other works. Elected President of the Hungarian Literary Academy in 1933 - aged just 32 -, he published his first novel, The Pendragon Legend (which draws upon his personal experience of living in Britain) the following year. His second and best-known work, Utas és holdvilág, known in English as Journey by Moonlight, came out in 1937. He was made a Professor of Literature at the University of Szeged the same year. He was twice awarded the Baumgarten Prize, in 1935 and 1937.

In 1941 he published a History of World Literature which continues to be authoritative today. He also published a volume on novel theory and a book about the history of Hungarian literature. Given numerous chances to escape antisemitic persecution (as late as 1944), he chose to remain in Hungary, where his last novel, a Pirandellian fantasy about a king staging a coup against himself, then having to impersonate himself, Oliver VII, was published in 1942. It was passed off as a translation from the English, as no 'Jewish' work could have been printed at the time.

Szerb was deported to a concentration camp late in 1944, and was beaten to death there in January 1945, at the age of 43.

English

• Journey by Moonlight
• The Pendragon Legend 2006 ISBN 1-901285-60-X (another translation published 1963)
• Oliver VII 2007 ISBN (13) 978 1 901285 90 1

Czech

• Pendragonská prisera 1946
• Pendragonská legenda 1985
• Tyran 1998

Dutch

• Reis bij maanlicht 2004 ISBN 978-90-5515-403-2
• Reis bij maanlicht 2005 Audiobook ISBN 978-90-7785-804-0
• De Pendragon Legende 2006 ISBN 978-90-5515-662-7

French

• La légende de Pendragon 1990 ISBN 2-7401-0000-0
• Le voyageur et le clair de lune 1992 ISBN 2-7401-0035-3

German

• Die Pendragon-Legende 1966 ISBN B0000BTJOF
• Die Pendragon-Legende 1978 ISBN 3-87680-773-5
• Die Pendragon-Legende 2004 ISBN 3-423-24425-9
• Der Wanderer und der Mond 1974
• Reise im Mondlicht 2003 ISBN 3-423-24370-8
• Das Halsband der Königin 2005 ISBN 3-423-13365-1
• Marie Antoinette oder Die unbeglichene Schuld (older translation of "Das Halsband der Königin") 1966 ISBN B0000BTJOE
• Oliver VII 1972 (published in East Germany)
• Oliver VII 2006 ISBN 3-423-13474-7
• In der Bibliothek (translation of "Szerelem a palackban") 2006 ISBN 3-423-24562-X

Italian

• La leggenda di Pendragon 1989
• Il viaggiatore e il chiaro di luna 1999

Polish

• Legenda Pendragonow 1971
• Podró?ny i ?wiat?o ksi??yca 1959

Slovak

• Prázdny hrob 1972

Slovenian

• Legenda o Pendragon 1980

Spanish

• El collar de la reina 1941
• El viajero bajo el resplandor de la luna 2000
• La leyenda de los Pendragon 2004