Summary of The Great Fortune
“The Great Fortune” – the first book of “The Balkan Trilogy” – is a historical novel set at the beginning of the Second World War, focusing on an English couple in Romania. Newlyweds Guy and Harriet Pringle arrive in Bucharest in the autumn of 1939, aiming to establish themselves in the city’s expatriate and academic circles. They remain largely oblivious to the growing dangers around them. As the German army invades Romania, they flee first to Athens and then to Alexandria.
Reasons to read The Great Fortune (The Balkan Trilogy)
“The Great Fortune” is the first part of Olivia Manning’s “The Balkan Trilogy”, which, along with “The Levant Trilogy”, constitutes her “Fortunes of War” series. These semi-autobiographical novels are often regarded as ‘forgotten masterpieces’ by an overlooked British writer. Anthony Burgess praised them as “the finest fictional record of the war produced by a British writer”. The “Fortunes of War” books are absorbing novels, telling the story of a young couple on the run during World War II.
Setting: Bucharest (Romania)
Original title: The Great Fortune (The Balkan Trilogy)
Year of publication: 1960
Nr of pages: 334
334 pages for the first novel “The Great Fortune”; the entire trilogy counts 944 pages.
