Fortunes of War [The Balkan Trilogy & The Levant Trilogy.] The Great Fortune; The Spoilt City; Friends and Heroes; The Danger Tree; The Battle Lost and Won; The Sum of Things [6 vols.]

Bookseller Notes

Manning's two trilogies, grouped together under the title Fortunes of War, use the same group of characters and draw upon the author's own experiences to explore the effects of the Second World War on the respective regions. They were described by Anthony Burgess as 'the finest fictional record of the war produced by a British writer', whilst Kay Dick, in her ODNB entry, for Manning observes that the author's 'pitiless clarity about human frailty is directed at the greedy, ambitious, and pretentious. Her compassionwhich goes deepis given to the poor, the persecuted, and animals', and considers that it was The Levant Trilogy that 'firmly established [Manning] as one of Britain's most outstanding novelists'.An excellent set, with a particularly good copy of the first volume.