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 Fortunes Of War. The Fortunes Of War series itself is split into two trilogies, The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy. 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, mirroring the life of Olivia Manning during those years, but uses fictional characters.The work was praised by critics for its perception and for an adept and scrupulous attention to detail, seen in its vivid descriptions of people, places, and the natural world. Source: Wikipedia (en)