McCOMBE, Leonard. Crisis. [N.p]: [Unpublished Maquette], [c.1947].


McCOMBE, Leonard.
Crisis.
[N.p]: [Unpublished Maquette], [c.1947].

4to (282 × 215 mm), pp.[208]. 224 photographs (60 black-and-white photographic reproductions, 51 gelatin silver prints pasted in, 113 photographic reproductions in red tones pasted in). Plain endpapers. Oatmeal cloth-covered boards; bottom front corner bumped affecting pages throughout, sporadic offsetting from glue used to paste images in, occasional oxidation, toning, fixer marks, cockling and creasing to silver prints. The verso of the first leaf has a note in black ink to the bottom outer corner stating ‘Crisis Bog. 1/2 S.W’. A caption note on first leaf states: ‘The placement of the text-lines is not definite.’ Hand-painted dust-jacket with two original gelatin silver photographs pasted to front and rear panels; light wear to edges, short split at head and foot of spine-fold, creasing at bottom corner. 38-leaf stapled typescript containing the text in English laid in, text marked up in pencil and corrected from English to American-English; folded horizontally, lightly worn, lacking ‘galley 37’ as mentioned on leaf 38 in pencil by an unknown corrector. Housed in its original cardboard shipping box; worn with split corners. The box has a Hammond, Hammond & Co. printed label that is addressed to ‘Mrs. H. Ryder, / Atlantis Editions, / 9/12, Bow Street, / Covent Garden, / London. W.C.2.

The maquette for ‘Crisis’, the unpublished English-language version of Leonard McCombe’s book on the human cost of World War II in Europe, published in Switzerland in 1947 as Menschen erleiden Geschichte. Das Gesicht Europas von der themse bis zur weichsel 1943-1946 [People Suffer History. The Face of Europe from the Thames to the Vistula 1943-1946].


Full description available on request.

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