Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian essays

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Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian Essays, or Etruscan Places, is a collection of travel writings by D. H. Lawrence, first published posthumously in 1932. In this book Lawrence contrasted the life affirming world of the Etruscans with the shabbiness of Mussolini's Italy during the late 1920s.

In preparing these essays, Lawrence travelled through the countryside of Tuscany with his friend Earl Brewster during the spring of 1927.

The volume published in 1932 included the following essays:

  • Cerveteri
  • Tarquinia
  • The Painted Tombs of Tarquinia 1
  • The Painted Tombs of Tarquinia 2
  • Vulci
  • Volterra
  • The Florence Museum

[edit] Further reading

  • Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian Essays (1932), edited by Simonetta de Filippis, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 052125253. (This text is also available as Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian Essays (1932), edited by Simonetta de Filippis, Penguin Twentieth Century Classics, 1999, ISBN 0-14-118103-2). The essays in this definitive scholarly text, based upon Lawrence's manuscripts, typescripts and corrected proofs, include those taken from the original collection. In addition, this volume includes other Italian essays such as:
  • David
  • Looking Down on the City
  • Europe Versus America
  • Fireworks
  • The Nightingale
  • Man is a Hunter
  • Flowery Tuscany
  • Germans and English

Lawrence's original intention was to publish his text with a sequence of related photographs. Copies of these pictures can be found in:

  • Etruscan Places, Foreword by Massimo Pallottino, Nuova Immaginare Editrice, Sienna, Third Edition, 1997, ISBN 88-7145-080-9