Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays

First US edition (publ. Viking, 1932)

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 Benito 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 first U.S. edition, published by the Viking Press in 1932 and titled Etruscan Places, states, "A portion of this material originally appeared in Travel, and was copyrighted (1927) by Robert M. McBride & Company, Inc."

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

Further reading

• Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian Essays (1932), edited by Simonetta de Filippis, Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-521-25253-9. 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
• Etruscan Places (1932), first American edition, without other essays, New York: The Viking Press.

External links

• Internet Archive on-line edition of Etruscan Places: [1] (encrypted!)
• Project Gutenberg Australia on-line edition of Etruscan Places: [2]