Marrin's Bookshop

Synopsis

A journey in various directions.

Item Description

FIRST EDITION. 8vo. 8.5 x 5.75 inches. 254 + [1] pp. Bound in original green cloth, gilt, in unclipped pictorial dust wrapper,with sunned spine, which has some foxing on rear wrapper and neatly repaired chips on top edge. Extremities a little worn at head and tail of spine which is slightly sunned. Flyleaves foxed and browned. Signature of Frances and Tony Sainsbury, Cambridge 1959 on first free endpaper. Loosely inserted: 5 items of correspondence on headed notepaper, 1990-91 (where dated). Illustrated by map. Decorated by publisher's device on verso of title. Volume relating the author's wartime experiences. John Verney (1913-93), educated at Eton and Oxford, was commissioned after the outbreak of war. After service in Syria and the Western Desert, he volunteered for the SAS and parachuted into Sardinia. Following capture he escaped in Italy and hid out in the Abruzzi region before rejoining the Eighth Army. After the war he began to paint and wrote and illustrated children's magazines and books. Inserted into the book are five letters between the author, Julian Critchley MP, of Farnham, who wrote about John Verney in The Independent of 16 June 1990, and Captain Tony Sainsbury, owner of the book, praising Going to the Wars. Julian Critchley (1930-2000) was MP for Rochester and Chatham, 1950-74 and for Aldershot, 1974-97.