A Late Education by Alan Moorehead (WWII correspondent)

Published by Penguin 1976, softcover, 185 pages, condition: as new.

A Late Education is the story of how Alan Moorehead, one the finest Australian journalists of the century, grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne, how he escaped to Europe at the age of 26 and plunged into the hallucinating prewar days in London and Paris. Moorehead was in England when Edward VIII abdicated, in Paris during its last gay days of the 30's and was sent to Spain on a tanker smuggling petrol into Valencia.

But this is also the story of Moorehead's friendship with a fellow journalist, Alexander Clifford. They were complementary opposites, professional rivals as well as friends. Clifford was an intellectual European and a profound pessimist, uncertain of himself and the world. The expatriate Moorehead was driven by his curiosity, brilliance and eagerness to discover the world. Together the pair went through the battles in the Western Desert, the landings in Sicily and France, and the final destruction of Hitler and Germany, which Moorehead recorded in his marvellous war books "Eclipse" and "African trilogy". After the war both Moorehead and Clifford continued to work in Europe, and their long conversations only ended with Clifford's death. By then Moorehead was writing the historical books for which he is so well known. A Late Education, the last book he wrote, is his own history.