Quarto. xi, [1], 280pp. With 39 maps and four charts. Contemporary cream cloth, contrasting brown morocco lettering-piece. Original publisher's printed green wrappers bound in. Lightly rubbed and marked. With later bookplate 'From the Library of the Earl of Avon', i.e., Sir Anthony Eden, loosely inserted. Presentation copy, inked inscription to verso of upper wrapper: 'To Anthony, in memory of his very gallant son from Dickie'.

A poignant and significant presentation copy of the definitive HMSO report of the Burma campaign during the Second World War, inscribed by the author, Louis Mountbatten, first Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1900-1979), whom Churchill had appointed as Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command (SEAC) in the summer of 1943; to then Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden, whose eldest son, Simon Gascoigne Eden - a navigator with the 62nd Squadron RAF VR - had been serving in Burma when his plane went missing in June 1945. His death was confirmed the following month, just before the 1945 General Election.

From the library of Sir Anthony Eden (1897-1977), Lord Avon, British foreign secretary (1935-38, 1940-45, and 1951-55) and Prime Minister (1955-1957). Following active service in the First World War, Eden read Oriental languages at Oxford. He was elected to the House of Commons in 1923. In 1935 he was appointed foreign secretary, a position he resigned in 1938 to protest Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Nazi Germany. When Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, he was named secretary of state for war, and later during the Second World War once more served as foreign secretary. Eden succeeded Churchill as Prime Minister in 1955. In 1956, his failure to respond effectively during the Suez Crisis, and the subsequent loss of party and public support, ultimately led to his resignation from office in 1957. He was knighted in 1954 and created earl of Avon in 1961.