The Etruscan - first US edition
by Mika Waltari
Through the story of Turms, an Etruscan wanderer looking for a place to call
'home', this novel ties together the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean
during the push of the Persians into Asia Minor and Egypt. The whole
Mediterranean was living in fear that the Persians would conquer and destroy
them. The story actually begins in the second chapter. The first chapter can
mislead the reader much in the same way that Hawthorne's first chapter of The
Scarlet Letter, The Toll House, misleads the reader into thinking that the novel
is a textbook and not a novel.
Originally written in Finish in 1964' translated by Lily Leino, this novel takes
place over 2500 years ago, between the glory years of Ancient Greece and Rome.
Book is nice and tight, red cloth with black lettering, first edition;
mismatched jacket is slightly chipped at top of spine, price-clipped, and second
printing.