1941 The Diary of a Staff Officer Air Intelligence Liaison Officer at Advanced Headquarters North B.A.F.F 1940

Description

Early Edition, Fine Binding

This first-hand account provides an overview of the German advance from May-June 1940 and their occupation of France. Through diary entries the reader is allowed a real-time analysis of faults in strategy and the feelings of those directly involved in the war. In one entry the author writes 'Oxborrow and I were thinking this morning how strange it was that we two English soldiers could be 250 miles from the B.E.F and be among the very few English to have any idea of the implications of these extreme moments in the world's history. I feel certain that the Cabinet can have no idea of what was happening yesterday or their action would have been different. From the newspapers it is evident that the people at home have so far had their complacence very little disturbed'. 

From the library at Julians Park, the former home of Audrey Pleydell-Bouverie (Audrey Evelyn James Coats, and Audrey Evelyn James Field). Pleydell-Bouverie was the youngest daughter of an Anglo-American lumber and steel millionaire. Audrey was also alleged to be the illegitimate granddaughter of King Edward VII, although she was also rumoured to be his daugher, or the lover of King Edward VIII.  She bought Julians Park in 1940 following her third marriage to the Hon Peter Pleydell-Bouverie. Audrey was a patron of the arts and it is believed that she bound several books herself, as many books from her library were stamped with her name and she owned a group of bookbinding tools. Her circle of friends included Winston Churchill, Coco Chanel and Nancy Mitford. She was featured in Cecil Beaton's 'Book of Beauty' and was regarded as one of the Bright Young Things.

In a fine quarter crushed morocco binding, similar to the style of Sangorski and Sutcliffe. Pleydell-Bouverie was close with Stanley Bray, a binder at the firm for over 60 years and he often bound works as gifts for her. 

This copy is the fourth edition, issued one month after the initial publication. The work was first printed in February 1941 and went through the second, third and fourth editions in March of the same year.

Although this work was published anonymously, it has since been attributed to Philip Gribble.