Edda Mussolini

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 the fascist dream in Italy.

Edda Mussolini is 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