War in Val D'Orcia de ORIGO, Iris

Cape, 1947. 1st edition. Hardcover. Fine blue cloth, very clean pages with fold-out map. The dustjacket is not price-clipped, it is browned at the spine with overall rubbing and some small repairs at the extremities. With her husband, the Marchesa Origo moved in 1924 from Florence to an estate in La Foce, a small hamlet south of Siena where, during the Second World War, they, and many of the local people, risked death to feed and clothe escaped Allied troops. A vivid and moving account of wartime rural life in Tuscany, with a laid-in 2003 newspaper article about the part the Origos played in restoring the estate, including the beautiful garden they created.