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BOOKS AND LETTERS FROM THE LIBRARY OF ANTHONY POWELL
Lot 335

WAUGH (EVELYN)
Men at Arms, INSCRIBED "For Tony, this mutable treasure house of technical inaccuracy from Evelyn", 1952; Officers and Gentlemen, INSCRIBED "Tony, a mmmm [?or "murmur"] from the Refusal World from Evelyn", 1955; Unconditional Surrender, INSCRIBED "For Tony & Violet with love from Evelyn October 1961", 1961, FIRST EDITIONS, AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPIES, Chapman & Hall (3)

24 June 2015, 11:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £16,250 inc. premium

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WAUGH (EVELYN)

Men at Arms, INSCRIBED "For Tony, this mutable treasure house of technical inaccuracy from Evelyn", 1952; Officers and Gentlemen, INSCRIBED "Tony, a mmmm [?or "murmur"] from the Refusal World from Evelyn", 1955; Unconditional Surrender, INSCRIBED "For Tony & Violet with love from Evelyn October 1961", 1961, FIRST EDITIONS, AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPIES, all inscribed to Anthony Powell on the front free endpapers, publisher's cloth, the first mentioned spine faded with light damp spots on lower cover, 8vo, Chapman & Hall (3)

Footnotes

"THIS MUTABLE TREASURE HOUSE OF TECHNICAL INACCURACY" - inscribed presentation copies of Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy of novels set, in some part based on his own experiences, during the Second World War. Waugh himself was unconvinced by Men at Arms writing to Nancy Mitford "It has some excellent farce, but only for a few pages. The rest very dull. Well, war was like that". This opinion is reflected in his presentation inscription to Powell - an author who he admired enormously. Powell wrote his own trilogy of volumes set during the war (The Valley of Bones, The Soldier's Art and The Military Philosophers, 1964-1968), as part of his Dance to the Music of Time series. Waugh was more positive about the next two titles in the trilogy, and Christopher Sykes considered Unconditional Surrender his best work, "and perhaps the whole trilogy, is not surpassed by any other book he wrote".

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