16mo. Two volumes bound as one. xxv, [1], 743pp, [1]. With a half-title. Bound by Zaehnsdorf in contemporary blue crushed morocco, tooled in gilt and blind, T.E.G. Very minor shelf-wear. Marbled endpapers, leaves a trifle toned. From the recently dispersed library of Anthony and Clarissa Eden, without any indication of such.

A handsomely bound copy of a revised edition of an anthology of Italian poetry, compiled by poet Giosue Carducci (1835-1907). In 1906, Carducci was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Italian to receive the honour.

Sir Anthony Eden (1897-1977), 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, would ultimately lead to his resignation from office in 1957. He was knighted in 1954 and created earl of Avon in 1961.