IN PLACE OF SPLENDOR

This life of a very gallant and very forceful young Spanish woman is both personal history and world history. She was born to a patrician, monied heritage and was destined to break the stranglehold of existing conventions as she matured in oppressed Spain of the post-war period. Her eyes were first opened by her years of English schooling and she returned contemptuous of the conditions that permitted the poverty she saw. She bucked society to break an unhappy marriage; with her second husband she fought for the Loyalist cause when war broke out. A record of three years of privation and unceasing activity, work with orphaned children, with the Foreign Press Bureau, where she knew Hemingway, Sheean and Matthews. Finally, defeat -- and America. Very colorful and dramatic writing, with little that is too intensely personal.