The Great Fortune

Cover of the first UK edition
Author	Olivia Manning
Country	Great Britain
Language	English
Genre	Historical fiction
Publisher	Heinemann
Publication date	1960
Media type	Print
Pages	296 pp
ISBN

The Great Fortune is a novel by English writer Olivia Manning first published in 1960. It forms the opening part of a six part novel series called the Fortunes Of War. The Fortunes Of War itself is split in two trilogies consisting of The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy. All the novels tell an unfolding story of how the Second World War impacts on the lives of a group of British expatriates.

The Great Fortune covers the first year of the war from September 1939 to June 1940 and is set in Romania. It is semi autobiographical and mirrors the life of Olivia Manning in during those years but uses fictional characters.

The work was praised by critics for its perception and almost masculine eye for detail along with its vivid descriptions of people and places.

The novel opens with an English couple, Guy and Harriet Pringle, travelling through Yugoslavia towards Romania on a train. They are just married after a whirlwind romance over the summer vacation. They are travelling to Bucharest where Guy has a job at the University English department which is  paid for by the British Council.

On the train they first encounter Prince Yakimov a once wealthy English educated White Russian emigre who is now nearly penniless and forced to live by scrounging.

Once in Bucharest they set up a temporary home in the Atheni hotel where all the British journalists congregate in what is known as the English bar. They witness the arrival of the last remnants of the defeated Polish army, vanquished by the German invasion of Poland. In a piece of luck Yakimov is hired as an assistant to work  for the veteran journalist  Mcann who has been wounded in the retreat and is desperate to get his story out. This enables Yakimov to live in the hotel in great style where he befriends the Pringles.

Guy shows Harriet the sites of Bucharest especially the cafes and the Cismigiu Park. She meets Sophie, a half Jewish student of Guy's who she senses is a rival for Guys affections as she seeks the security of a passport.