Description
From the library of Prime Minister Clement Attlee, The Good Companions by J.B. Priestley. This copy is inscribed by Attlee to his wife, Violet Helen Attlee.
Octavo, viii, [2], 640pp. Blue cloth, title stamped in gilt on the spine. Stated “January, February 1930” on the copyright page, following the first impression from July, 1929. Notable wear to cloth along the spine, wear at head of the spine. Text block solid. In the publisher’s dust jacket, light toning along the spine, small chip along lower edge of front board, presumably paired with this copy.
Bookplate of Clement Attlee on the front pastedown, with the following inscription to his wife, Violet: “Vio, with much love from Clem. 24th May 1930.”
The Good Companions won the 1929 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction and established Priestley as a major popular novelist.
Clement R. Attlee (1883-1967) served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, following his term as Deputy Prime Minister during the coalition government of Winston Churchill. Attlee remains the longest-serving leader of the Labour Party, from 1935 to 1955. Following the Second World War, the British economy was near bankruptcy and suffering from food shortages. Attlee’s creation of the modern welfare state and fiscal reforms were met with skepticism during his tenure as Prime Minister, but history now regards him as one of the greatest British prime ministers.
