My Autobiography is a book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

 by Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

. It is a dictated, narrative autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 recounting the author's youth, his years as an agitator and journalist, his experiences in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, the formation and revolutionary struggles of the Fascist Party, the March on Rome

March on Rome

The March on Rome was a march by which Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party came to power in the Kingdom of Italy...

, and his early years in power.

Mussolini dictated parts of the text to his brother Arnoldo Mussolini who handed the manuscripts, together with other material supplied by Margarita Scarfatti, Mussolini's lover, to Richard Washburn Child

Richard Washburn Child

Richard Washburn Child was an American author and diplomat.-Early life and career:Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Child went to Harvard University and Law School where he graduated in 1906 to become a business lawyer...

 (the former American Ambassador

Ambassador

An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....

 to Italy) who together with Luigi Barzini, Jr.

Luigi Barzini, Jr.

Luigi Barzini Jr. was an Italian journalist, writer and politician most famous for his 1964 book The Italians, delving deeply into the Italian national character and introducing many Anglo-Saxon readers to Italian life and culture.-Early life:Barzini junior was born in Milan, Lombardy, the son of...

 served as a ghostwriter for the autobiography, mainly aimed at readers in the USA. It was a paid propaganda job and remained unpublished in Italy until 1971. It was first serialized in The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...

 (May to Oct. 1928) and then published as a book, with a foreword, by Child in 1928. In this preface, he wrote:

Publishing history

First published in gilt-lettered green cloth by Charles Scribner's Sons

Charles Scribner's Sons

Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing a number of American authors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon...

 in 1928. Hurst & Blackett reprinted a cheap edition in 1936. A Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 translation was published in 1937. In 1939 Hutchinson & Co. published an edition with "specially authorised additions by arrangement and approval of Il Duce, bringing it up to the year 1939". Greenwood Press reprinted the 1928 edition in 1970 (ISBN 0-8371-4294-6).

In 1998, Da Capo Press

Da Capo Press

Da Capo Press, is an American publishing company with headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1964 as a publisher of music books, as a division of Plenum Publishers. it had additional offices in offices in New York City, Philadelphia and Emeryville, California...

 published My Rise and Fall (ISBN 0-306-80864-1) combining My Autobiography with The Fall of Mussolini: His Own Story (1948).

The typescript of the Child text is in the Houghton Library at Harvard University.

Contents

• Foreword

1. A Sulphurous Land
2. My Father
3. The Book of Life (in some editions the first three chapters are one titled: Youth)
4. War and Its Effect upon a Man
5. Ashes and Embers
6. The Death Struggle of a Worn out Democracy
7. The Garden of Fascism
8. Toward Conquest of Power
9. Thus We Took Rome
10. Five Years of Government
11. New Paths
12. The Fascist State and the Future
13. En Route
    • Index