10 Lei Mateiu I. Caragiale

Mateiu I. Caragiale — illegitimate son of the far more famous Ion Luca Caragiale — published only one novel in his lifetime, the decadent Craii de Curtea-Veche (1929), yet that single work secured his permanent place in Romanian letters. He spent decades on it, revising obsessively, and died in 1936 having written almost nothing else. The National Bank's commemorative program has repeatedly drawn from Romania's literary canon for its silver issues, and Mateiu's selection reflects a deliberate rehabilitation of a writer long overshadowed by his father's reputation.