BEAU GESTE

London: John Murray, 1927. With illustrations by Helen McKie. Pp. [xii]+580(last blank)+[4](music & lyrics to Song of the Legion, dated 1926, the theme for the Paramount Pictures film of the book), frontispiece portrait with tissue guard, plus 20 hand-tipped plates (4 coloured, on brown card), lettered guards, 9 headpiece illustrations, the title page printed in red & black; thick med. 8vo; qr. red cloth, with printed paper title label on spine, light blue buckram boards, the spine cloth slightly spotted; t.e.g., others uncut; dust wrapper, edges rubbed and split, with a few small chips, the backstrip quite discoloured and torn; upper hinge starting, pp. 36/7 browned at upper margin near hinge, outer leaves and edges foxed; Murray, London, 1927. De luxe edition, limited to 1000 numbered copies signed by the author. *Presentation copy, with the author's armorial bookplate on the upper pastedown; the bookplate inscribed and signed by Wren and his new wife, Isabel, 'With love to Madge & Peter'. Isabel was P. C. Wren's second wife, and had previously been married to Cyril Graham Smith, a civil engineer with the Indian educational service at Poona. In 1927 Smith filed for divorce, citing Wren as co-respondent. 'Madge & Peter' were Mr. & Mrs. A. H. Parkes. (Alfred Herbert Parkes, who disliked his baptismal name, was customarily called 'Peter' by family and friends). The Parkes met the Wrens on a cruise, probably in 1927, and began a long-standing friendship. This copy of Beau Geste, Wren's most famous book, is the first of many volumes the author presented to the family over the years - usually to their son Francis Patrick, who was Wren's godson.