MANNING, Olivia ~ The Great Fortune.

FIRST UK PRINTING. Heinemann, London: 1960.

8vo., bright blue boards, lettered in darker blue to spine; together in the pictorial dustwrapper, the upper panel and spine featuring an image by John Raynes; THE BOOK a lovely fresh copy, ever-so-slightly pushed at spine ends, with Foyles bookseller sticker to front paste down, and owner's name ('Chubb') to ffep; THE WRAPPER very good, a little toned along the backstrip, edges and folds, with a little rubbing and some small nicks to head/foot of spine and folds. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First UK edition. The first in Manning's six part 'Fortunes Of War' series, this the first in the sub-set 'Balkan Trilogy' which, together with 'The Levant Trilogy', follow a young married couple, Harriet and Guy Pringle during the early years of the Second World War (the 'phoney war', as she calls it). Manning married Reggie Smith in 1939, and shortly after Smith was called to work in Europe. They arrived in Bucharest on the 3rd September 1939, coinciding with the day that Britain declared war on Germany, and this book, together with its successor 'The Spoilt City', explores Manning's own perplexing experiences in Romania. From there, the couple traveled extensively, to Greece, Egypt, and Palestine as the Nazi party began to expand across Eastern Europe. The third part of this trilogy, 'Friends and Heroes' (1965), chronicles their escape to Alexandria, just days ahead of the Germans. Manning did achieve some success during her lifetime, however her greatest fame was perhaps posthumous, when the series was adapted for television in 1987, starring Kenneth Branagh as Guy Pringle and Emma Thompson as Harriet. The writer Anthony Burgess once described the series as "the finest fictional record of the war produced by a British writer".

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Near Fine
JACKET: Very Good