SLIM, Field-Marshal Sir William. Defeat Into Victory. London: Cassell and Company Ltd, 1956.
First edition, first impression. Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, in the original dust jacket priced 25/- net, protected in a removable mylar sleeve. With frontispiece portrait of Slim and 21 maps.
A near fine copy in a remarkable original dust jacket. Cloth clean and square, gilt bright, contents clean with light toning. Early ownership inscription to the front free endpaper, with blind-stamped address for Cedar Lodge, Little Easton, Dunmow, Essex. The dust jacket is unusually fresh and striking, with strong colour, only light rubbing, small nicks and minor wear to the extremities.
Signed beneath the frontispiece portrait: “W. J. Slim F.M. / Presteigne / 28 Sept. 1956.” This is especially attractive: a publication-year signature, with place and date, written beneath the image of Slim as commander in Burma. The location, Presteigne, gives the autograph a precise contemporary setting, while the use of “F.M.” places it firmly in his Field Marshal period.
Defeat Into Victory is one of the great command memoirs of the Second World War. Slim inherited a shattered army after the retreat from Burma and rebuilt it into the Fourteenth Army, the so-called “Forgotten Army”, restoring morale, discipline and purpose before driving the Japanese back through Burma. The National Army Museum describes Slim as the commander who inherited a disastrous situation and turned it to ultimate victory.
A superb signed copy of one of the finest British military memoirs, in a dust jacket far better than usually encountered.
