Emergency Exit and The School for Dictators — Ignazio Silone

Author: Ignazio Silone
Publisher: Victor Gollancz
Format: Two hardcover books with dust jackets
Edition: The School for Dictators: Gollancz edition, rewritten with explanatory preface; Emergency Exit: first English-language Gollancz edition, 1969
ISBN: The School for Dictators: 0575011858 / 9780575011854; Emergency Exit: 0575003308 / 9780575003309

Condition: Good second-hand hardcover condition with dust jackets. Both books show general shelf wear, rubbing, age toning, handling marks, and light wear to the boards and jackets. Dust jackets show visible marks, creasing, small tears, edge wear, and some discolouration consistent with age. Bindings appear firm and pages are clean with light toning. Please see photos for the exact copies available.

This pair brings together two politically charged works by Ignazio Silone, one of the major Italian writers of the twentieth century and a lifelong critic of fascism, authoritarianism, and political dogma.

The School for Dictators is Silone’s satirical and analytical study of dictatorship, rewritten with an explanatory preface. Through irony, political argument, and anti-fascist insight, it examines how dictatorships are created, sustained, mythologised, and resisted.

Emergency Exit is a collection of autobiographical fragments and reflections, combining personal memory, political disillusionment, exile, faith, and moral reckoning. It traces Silone’s break with Communist orthodoxy and his lifelong concern with truth, conscience, and human freedom.