Olivia. The Balkan Trilogy: The Great Fortune; The Spoilt City; Friends and Heroes.

by MANNING

£850 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

MANNING, Olivia. The Balkan Trilogy: The Great Fortune; The Spoilt City; Friends and Heroes. London: Heinemann . 1962, 1964, 1965. 8vo. Three volumes. Original blue cloth lettered in blue (Vol. I) and gilt (II, III) to spines, in the dustwrappers designed by John Raynes (I, II) and Paul Castell (III); pp. [6], 296, [2]; [8], 319, [1]; [8], 363, [3]; Vol. I: tiny slit to cloth over spine, a touch faded and rubbed to spine tips, offsetting to endpapers; Vol. II: spotting to upper edge, just visible at the head of open pages, one or two spots to lower and fore-edges, toned to tips and edges, small mark (c. 4 x 3 mm) to cloth front panel, “R” (review?) stamped to upper corner of front free endpaper; Vol III: a touch rubbed to spine tips; wrappers rubbed, nicked, and with a couple of closed tears to extremities, toned, dusty, residue of one previous tape repair to verso of Vol III; II and III are neatly price-clipped, I retains the printed price to front flap; bindings remain square, pages clean, a very good set in good wrappers; uncommon. First editions, first printings of Olivia Manning’s great Balkan Trilogy. Well received on publication, Manning’s Balkan Trilogy has steadily grown in reputation. Issued a decade after Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour sequence, its quiet, exacting progress is in marked contrast to both Waugh’s trilogy and other more immediately celebrated accounts of the war. At once a chronicle of war and a study of marriage, the trilogy follows Guy and Harriet P

• Binding: Hardcover

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