1958 View to the Southeast

Description

Author's Presentation Copy, First Edition, Publishers' Original Binding, Signed, With Dustwrapper

The first U.K. edition of this work.

Signed by the author to the recto to the front endpaper, 'To my darling Audrey, with love from Santha'.

In the original unclipped dustwrapper.

A descriptive and vivid travel work by Santha Rama Rau, taking the reader across Southeast Asia. 

Looking at the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laod, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Bali, Burma, and Ceylon.

From the library of Audrey Pleydell-Bouverie, from her library at Julians Park, Hertfordshire. After being widowed at 25, Audrey married the fabulously wealthy American department store heir, Marshall Field III, later divorcing him and marrying the Honorable Peter Pleydell-Bouverie. In 1940 she bought Julians Park and redesigned the interior. Her library was impressive, with many examples of her own bookbinding.

Audrey was an extravagant socialite and renowned beauty, the illegitimate granddaughter of King Edward VII (though she was also rumoured to be his daughter, or the lover of King Edward VIII), featured in the 'Book of Beauty' by Cecil Beaton. She had many high profile friends, such as Winston Churchill, Coco Chanel, Fred Astaire, and Nancy Mitford, a sparkling hostess of the Edwardian period, her hedonistic antics bringing her into the Bright Young Things.