Lucy Tal, the spouse of E. P. Tal, the novel's original 1937 publisher, believed that "Essad Bey" (Nussimbaum) had probably written it but that she was not sure as her husband Peter had dealt with the contracts but had died suddenly of a heart attack and she had fled Vienna with the Anschluss. Furthermore, she did not trust Essad Bey in regard to the contracts: "Essad sometimes was the real Oriental fairytale story teller. What was true or not true did not always bother him much."