8vo. xii, 563pp, [1]. Bound by Truslove & Hanson in contemporary gilt-tooled navy half-calf, blue cloth boards, T.E.G. A trifle rubbed, spine and head of upper board sunned. Marbled endpapers. Armorial bookplate of Anthony Eden to FEP.

A handsomely bound copy of William Schwenck Gilbert's (1836-1911) illustrated burlesque playlets, which are in reality shrewd reviews of contemporary plays. The first collection of The 'Bab' Ballads was issued by John Camden Hotten in 1869; a lack of commercial support by the publisher led Gilbert to turn to George Routledge & Sons, who published successive collections of the ballads until the end of the century, after which Macmillan took them over.

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.