signed first edition Hardcover
1935 · Boston
by DAWES, Charles G.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1935. Hardcover. 8vo. Blue linen with gilt lettering. 329pp. Frontispiece, illustrations. Very good. Would grade higher but for mild abrasion near top of front board, mainly near the right, but otherwise it's tight and bright throughout; lacks dust jacket. Attractive first edition, boldly inscribed and signed by Dawes in black ink on front flyleaf: "Ernest M. Oswalt / from / Charles G. Dawes." Dawes (1865-1951) was an astonishing polymath who went from Comptroller of the Currency under McKinley (1989-1901) to first director of the Bureau of the Budget under Harding (1921-22) to Vice President of the U.S. under Coolidge (1925-29) to U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom under Hoover (1929-31), filling in the gaps as a high-level banker, general, composer and musician-- and, oh yes, picking up the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925 for creating the Dawes Plan for World War One reparations. Recipient Oswalt (1887-1955) was an Illinois business executive -- he lived in Batavia and Dawes in Evanston -- and president of beauty products firm Campana Corporation, well-known enough in the 1930s to appear as endorser in full-page magazine advertisements for Pullman train cars. Sharp copy of a title seldom found signed.
(Inventory #: 49510)