Journey to a War

New York: Random House. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. (c.1939). 1st American Edition (see Notes) Early Printing. Hardcover. [minor shelfwear, slight wear to cloth at top of spine, vintage bookseller's label on rear pastedown (Larry Edmund's [sic] Book Shop, Hollywood); jacket has some shallow chipping along top edge of front panel (slightly impacting the title), a few other little edge-nicks, and a little fading along the spine]. (B&W photographs, endpaper maps) Auden and Isherwood's journal of their trip through war-torn China, undertaken in 1938 at the joint request of their English and American publishers. "Their itinerary included Hong-kong, Canton, Hankow, Shanghai, the Yellow River war zone, and the Southeastern front in Anhwei Province. On their travels they met many of China's leading personalities -- the Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Chou En-Lai, the German military advisers, Miss Agnes Smedley, Mr. Peter Fleming, and a host of others. Auden's contribution includes a long poem and a series of sonnets. Isherwood supplies a day-to-day account of four months' varied and exciting travel, based upon a diary kept alternately by both authors. The photographs were taken by Auden." Despite the chipping, this is a well-preserved example of the uncommon jacket -- which, like most uncoated-paper Random House jackets of the period, is very susceptible to wear and tear. [NOTE that the binding on this copy is brown cloth with black printing on the spine only; although I've seen this binding referred to as a second printing, this copy bears no printing statement (first, second or otherwise). I have tagged it as an early printing based on several attributes: (1) the unclipped jacket has the original printed price of $3.00 (the price at which the book was originally published); (2) all the Auden/Isherwood books listed on the rear jacket flap were published prior to 1939; (3) the rear jacket panel quotes several London reviews -- although this doesn't necessarily prove anything, since the book was published in England several months earlier than in America, and therefore those same review excerpts may well have appeared on the jacket at the time of its first printing.] .