Description
The signed limited edition of The Legion Book, edited by Captain H. Cotton Minchin, with the signatures of 89 contributors, found only in the deluxe edition of 100 copies, for the personal use of H.R.H. The Prince of Wales.
Quarto, xi, [5], 241pp, [9 collotypes]. Maroon buckram, title stamped in gilt on the spine. Top edge gilt, uncut outer edge. Lightly sunned spine, faint foxing to endpapers, else fine. Housed in the publisher’s slipcase, title on label affixed to the spine, top joints showing wear, light foxing to panels. Complete with frontispiece and tissue guard, nine additional woodcut illustrations, and nine collotypes (with captioned tissue covers).
From a limited edition of 600 copies, of which 500 are for sale, this one numbered 224, signed by Captain H. Cotton Minchin on the limitation page.
The five laid-in signature leaves contain the signatures of 88 British contributors to this work, including four Prime Ministers. Notable contributors include: Winston Churchill, Aldous Huxley, P.G. Wodehouse, Ramsay MacDonald, David Lloyd George, Stanley Baldwin, Vita Sackville-West, Jacob Epstein, Rudyard Kipling, G.K. Chesterton, Augustus John, Paul Nash, Georges Clemenceau, Heath Robinson, and many more.
(Woods B12(a)) (Cohen B38.1)
The Legion Book was commissioned by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales (Edward VIII), with sale proceeds to benefit the Royal British Legion. The first 100 copies were reserved for H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, and bound in white pigskin designed by Charles Rickets. Each of these reserved copies were signed by all the contributors; the remaining limited edition copies were signed only by the Editor, H. Cotton Minchin.
