Andre Maurois — Climats
Paris, Bernard Grasset, 1928. Leather. One of Andre Maurois' best-known works, in the original French. One of Andre Maurois' best-known works, in the original French. With an ink inscription by Andre Maurois to the title page. Ex libris William Tyrell. Tyrrell served in the Foreign Office from 1889 to 1928. He was private secretary to the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Thomas Sanderson from 1896 to 1903 and then secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence from 1903 to 1904 before being appointed as second secretary at the British embassy in Rome. He returned firstly as precis-writer from 1905 to 1907 and later, with Louis Mallet, as private secretary to Sir Edward Grey from 1907 to 1915. Tyrrell supported the Entente Cordiale with France and did not think a rapprochement with Imperial Germany was possible before 1914. In the spring of 1915 Tyrrell appears to have suffered an almost total breakdown and he was moved to a less stressful job at the Home Office before being made head of the Political Intelligence Department from 1916 to 1919. He was Permanent Under-Secretary from 1925 to 1928 and British Ambassador to France from 1928 to 1934. As Permanent Under-Secretary he did not think there was a military threat from Japan and that Russia was the enemy and as Ambassador he worked for an Anglo-French agreement. He was also suspicious of Nazi Germany. He was sworn into the Privy Council in 1928 and made a Peer as Baron Tyrrell of Avon in the County of Southampton, in 1929. In 1935 he was appointed President of the British Board of Film Censors, a post he held until 1947. This book seems to date from his time in Paris as British Ambassador. Numbered 95 to the verso of the title page. Maurois' first novel, Les silences du colonel Bramble, was a witty and socially realistic account of that experience. It was an immediate success in France. It was translated and became popular in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries as The Silence of Colonel Bramble. Many of his other works have also been translated into English, as they often dealt with British people or topics, such as his biographies of Disraeli, Byron, and Shelley. In a quarter-morocco binding with marbled boards. Externally, sound, though with some rubbing and a few marks. Internally, firmly bound. Pages have some slight marginal browning, with just a few instances of foxing. Very Good Indeed . Ill.: Not stated. Very Good Indeed .