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Edda Mussolini

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Edda Mussolini was Benito's favourite daughter: spoilt, venal, uneducated but clever, faithless but flamboyant, a brilliant diplomat, wild but brave, and ultimately strong and loyal.

She was her father's confidante during the 20 years of Fascist rule, acting as envoy to both Germany and Britain, and playing a part in steering Italy to join forces with Hitler. From her early twenties she was effectively first lady of Italy. She married Galeazzo Ciano, who would become the youngest Foreign Secretary in Italian history, and they were the most celebrated and glamorous couple in elegant, vulgar Roman fascist society.

Their fortunes turned in 1943, when Ciano voted against Mussolini in a plot to bring him down, and his father-in-law did not forgive him. In a dramatic story that takes in hidden diaries, her father's fall and her husband's execution, an escape into Switzerland and a period in exile, we come to know a complicated, bold and determined woman who emerges not just as a witness but as a key player in some of the twentieth century's defining moments. And we see Fascist Italy with all its glamour, decadence and political intrigue, and the turbulence before its violent end.

© Caroline Moorehead 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Critics Review

It's testament to Moorehead's precise, empathic prose that Edda emerges not as the Duce's devilish scion, but as a wounded, fragile being... It makes for a profoundly satisfying, albeit wistful, read and - give the recent victory of Giorgia Meloni in the Italian elections - a worryingly relevant one
Guardian
Interesting and original... Moorehead is a fine writer and a conscientious historian
Spectator
[Moorehead] brilliantly sketches the background of Mussolini and his regime
LIterary Review
Painstakingly researched and vividly told, this engrossing history turns the spotlight on the deeply conflicted Edda Mussolini, brilliantly balancing the big picture with a wealth of telling detail
CLARE MULLEY, author of The Women Who Flew for Hitler
Caroline Moorehead writes with her characteristic elegance, eye for detail and authoritative knowledge about a monster and a survivor. The story of Mussolini's glamorous daughter is certainly a fascinating one
MIRANDA SEYMOUR, author of I Used to Live Here Once
Wide-ranging and compelling... this book will take a leading place in all studies of the reality of Fascism and all authoritarianism
RICHARD BOSWORTH, author of Mussolini and the Eclipse of Italian Fascism
This is a triumph
Oldie
Superbly written and researched
Tablet
[A] gripping new book
History Today
Author Caroline Moorehead
Narrator Kathleen Gati
Duration 16 hours and 38 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781529194906
Format Audiobook
Publisher Random House
Genre Biography: historical, political and military, European history, Far-right political ideologies and movements, Gender studies: women and girls, Second World War, Violence, intolerance and persecution in history
Availability AU, GB, IE

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