LIPPMANN, Walter. U.S. War Aims. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1944.
A superb presentation copy from Walter Lippmann to Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, from Portal’s personal collection, inscribed on the front free endpaper during Lippmann’s wartime visit to London. Lippmann was among the most influential American political commentators of the twentieth century, and U.S. War Aims addressed precisely the questions facing Allied leaders in 1944: the settlement with Germany and Japan, Anglo-American relations, the Atlantic community, the Soviet Union, China, and the construction of a durable post-war order. The association is highly appropriate. Portal, as Chief of the Air Staff, was one of Britain’s principal wartime military figures, deeply involved in Allied strategy at the moment when Lippmann was analysing the political shape of victory.
First British edition, first impression. Octavo, original pale cloth lettered in blue to spine, in the original printed dust jacket priced 7s. 6d. net. First published in Britain by Hamish Hamilton in 1944. The volume is preserved in notably fresh condition, the fragile wartime jacket surviving unusually well, with only light toning, minor chipping and rubbing to extremities, and small areas of edge wear. Cloth clean and bright, binding firm, contents clean.
The inscription appears to read: “To Sir Charles Portal / from his sincere admirer / W. Lippmann / London / Nov. 11, 1944.” The date is significant: this copy was presented in London while the war was moving toward its final strategic and diplomatic phase, and while the shape of the post-war settlement was becoming a pressing Allied concern.
The uneven paper quality is characteristic of British wartime production. The earlier gatherings are more browned and acidic, while later sections are on better stock, almost certainly reflecting paper rationing and mixed supplies under war economy conditions rather than later alteration.
At the time of cataloguing, no other signed copy appears to be available on the market. It is remarkable that the only signed example traced is not merely signed, but inscribed to a figure so directly connected with the book’s wartime subject matter: Britain’s senior RAF commander during the Allied war effort.
A strong wartime association copy, linking the leading American foreign-policy journalist of the period with one of Britain’s central wartime commanders.
