War in Val d'Orcia

1947, a rare first printing of Iris Origo's Italian wartime diary

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

First edition, first printing. Hardback in dustwrapper. 20.5 × 13.5cm, 239pp.

At the height of the Second World War, Italy was being torn apart by German armies, civil war, and the eventual Allied invasion. In a corner of Tuscany, one woman – born in England, married to an Italian – kept a record of daily life in a country at war. Iris Origo’s compellingly powerful diary, War in Val d’Orcia, is the spare and vivid account of what happened when a peaceful farming valley became a battleground.

At great personal risk, the Origos gave food and shelter to partisans, deserters and refugees. They took in evacuees, and as the front drew closer they faced the knowledge that the lives of thirty-two small children depended on them. Origo writes with sensitivity and generosity, and a story emerges of human acts of heroism and compassion, and the devastation that war can bring.

Condition

The book itself is in very good condition but a previous owner has taped in a newspaper portrait of Iris Origo and the tape has tanned, and with the previous owner's neat name above. The pages are clean and the binding is strong. The dustwrapper is tanned to the spine and edges with very slight loss to the head of the spine but is now within a protective sleeve. The wrapper has been neatly price-clipped. Overall, a very good of a scarce first edition.

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