Edda Mussolini
  • Published: 5 December 2023
  • ISBN: 9781529112016
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $24.99
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Edda Mussolini

The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe

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From Sunday Times bestseller Caroline Moorehead comes a thrilling and immersive look at the life of Mussolini's favourite daughter and a heart-stopping account of the rise and fall of fascist dream in Italy

A thrilling biography of Benito Mussolini's favourite daughter, and a heart-stopping account of the unravelling of the Fascist dream in Italy

'Engrossing... Moorehead has a spirited turn of phrase, a keen eye for the telling detail and pungent quote, and a gift for marshaling complex material' Jenny Uglow, New York Times Book Review

Edda Mussolini was Benito's favourite daughter: spoilt, venal and uneducated but also clever, brave, and ultimately loyal. She was her father's confidante during the 20 years of Fascist rule and married Foreign Secretary Galeazzo Ciano, making them the most celebrated couple in Roman fascist society.

Their fortunes turned in 1943, when Ciano voted against Mussolini in a plot to bring him down. In a dramatic story that takes in hidden diaries, her father's fall and her husband's execution, 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.

'Vividly told, engrossing history' CLARE MULLEY, author of The Women Who Flew for Hitler

'Precise, empathic . . . a profoundly satisfying, albeit wistful, read and . . . a worryingly relevant one' GUARDIAN
  • Published: 5 December 2023
  • ISBN: 9781529112016
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $24.99
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Caroline Moorehead

Caroline Moorehead is the biographer of Bertrand Russell, Freya Stark, Iris Origo and Martha Gellhorn. Her book on the French Resistance, Village of Secrets, was a Sunday Times bestseller and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2014. Her most recent book, A Bold and Dangerous Family, was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award. She lives in London.

portrait photo of Caroline Moorehead

Also by Caroline Moorehead

A House in the Mountains
A Bold and Dangerous Family
Village of Secrets
A Train in Winter
Dancing to the Precipice
Human Cargo
Martha Gellhorn
See all

Praise for Edda Mussolini

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

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

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

[Moorehead] brilliantly sketches the background of Mussolini and his regime

R J B Bosworth, LIterary 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

This is a triumph

Oldie

Superbly written and researched

Tablet

[A] gripping new book

History Today