Editions

The Middle Parts of Fortune

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780141393414

  • Length: 272  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 16mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 202g

  • RRP: £8.99

The Middle Parts of Fortune

A moving, raw and powerful novel about fighting on the front - 'The finest and noblest book of men in war that I have ever read' (Ernest Hemingway)

Bourne is a private fighting on the front. He is under pressure to accept a commission and become an officer, but he prefers to be among the ranks, drawn into the universal struggle for survival in a world gone mad.

Manning's startling work is unlike any other First World War novel in its portrayal of the lives of ordinary British soldiers: the trauma of the Somme; the moments of bloodlust; the camaraderie, rivalry, alcohol and boredom. Considered obscene for its language and previously published in censored form as Her Privates We, The Middle Parts of Fortune appears here in its raw, unexpurgated version.

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780141393414

  • Length: 272  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 16mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 202g

  • RRP: £8.99

Reviews

  • Outstanding. Almost certainly the finest work of its kind to emerge from the war

    Max Hastings, Guardian

  • I read it over once each year to remember how things really were

    Ernest Hemingway

  • The finest novel to come out of the First World War

    William Boyd

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About the Author

Frederic Manning

Niall Ferguson is one of Britain's most renowned historians. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, and a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He is the author of fifteen books, including The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, Empire, Civilization and Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, which won the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Prize. He is an award-making filmmaker, too, having won an international Emmy for his PBS series The Ascent of Money. His many other prizes include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013). He was named Columnist of the Year at the 2018 British Press Awards.

Frederic Manning

Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson is one of Britain's most renowned historians. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, and a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. His most recent book is The Square and the Tower.

Niall Ferguson

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