ETRUSCAN PLACES

by DH Lawrence

Apart from his many novels D.H. Lawrence several vivid impressions of the countries in which he had travelled, and "Etruscan Places" is one of them.

The scene of these chapters is the region of Etruria, in the middle of Italy, where a group of twelve city-states once flourished until the Romans wiped them out in the fourth and third centuries B.C. The people of this old civilization, the Etruscans, are very much a mystery. Their language, for instance, has never been fathomed or deciphered and, because they build mainly in wood, their cities have vanished completely. The clues to the Etruscan way of life are to be sought in their tombs, of which a great number have been excavated and preserved, and in these there is abundant evidence of their nature and accomplishment in all the arts, especially in the art of living.

In the legends of the Etruscans DH Lawrence found confirmation of his own conceptions of civilization, and in recounting his discoveries and meditations in 'lost' Etruria he writes with deep fervour and persuasiveness.

Published by Penguin Books in 1950 (first Penguin edition) Soft-cover (169 pages) Previous owners name on flyleaf page