The Balkan Trilogy - Olivia Manning
MANNING, Olivia. The Balkan Trilogy: Great Fortune, Spoilt City, Friends and Heroes. London: Heinemann, 1962-1965.
All first editions. A scarce first edition set of Olivia Manning’s Balkan Trilogy, one of the finest literary evocations of Second World War in English. The novels are based on the author’s experiences in Romania and Greece. A fusion of autobiography and historical fiction the story recalls the dramatic lives of an English young couple caught up by the war in much the same ways Manning and her husband, Reggie Smith, had been. The dust-jackets of the first two volumes are illustrated by John Raynes, and depict evocative scenes of Bucharest from 1939-40.
Manning’s Balkan Trilogy together with the Levant Trilogy (the two trilogies are collectively known as Fortunes of War) had been adapted into a successful television series in 1987 starring Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh in the leading roles.
3 volumes, 8vo, original cloth. Friends and Heroes with just a little browning to endpapers. Fore-edge of Spoilt City slightly spotted. In dust-jackets. Jacket of Great Fortune with some edge-wear and archival paper repair to spine ends and top fore-corners, partial light browning. Jacket of Spoilt City with archival paper repair to spine ends, price-clipped with residual glue stain from replacement price sticker (now removed), slight spotting to rear fold. Overall, a very good set of this scare trilogy.