The letters of Martha Gellhorn

Martha Gellhorn was one of the most extraordinary of all female war correspondents.

Her letters have been selected and edited for publication by her biographer, Caroline Moorehead.

Martha Gellhorn's career tracked many of the flashpoints of the 20th century: she witnessed at first hand the Depression in the south of the United States; the Spanish Civil War; the Second World War in Finland, Italy and France; the D-Day landings; and the Vietnam War.

She was married to Ernest Hemingway. And, she numbered among her close friends such diverse people as Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the President of the United States; the writer H.

G. Wells; the war-photographer Robert Capa; the society beauty Diana Cooper; and the composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein.

Gellhorn wrote splendidly lively and intimate letters about all these events to all these people.

Her style is unflinchingly honest, spiky, funny and informative.