SETON-WATSON, Robert (1879-1951). Britain and the Dictators, Cambridge, 1938, 8vo, buckram. FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, A HIGHLY IMPORTANT COPY, ANNOTATED AND HIGHLIGHTED IN PENCIL BY ANTHONY EDEN THROUGHOUT. With another by the same author. (2)

SETON-WATSON, Robert William (1879-1951).  Britain and the Dictators. A Survey of Post-War British Policy. Cambridge: At the University Press, 1938. 8vo (217 x 140mm). Half title. Original blue buckram, spine lettered, ruled and decorated in gilt (spine faded, without the dust-jacket). Provenance: Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (modern armorial bookplate loosely-inserted). FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, A HIGHLY IMPORTANT COPY, ANNOTATED AND COPIOUSLY HIGHLIGHTED IN PENCIL BY ANTHONY EDEN THROUGHOUT, with a one-page letter pasted onto the front free endpaper from the author to Anthony Eden, dated 6 May, 1938, stating, "Dear Mr Eden, It was very kind of you to write as you did about my book on foreign policy [Eden's copy of which is included in the lot], & I greatly appreciated it. I am now venturing to send you a postwar sequel - Britain and the Dictators - and hope very much that you will find it in accord with the broad lines of your policy, for it was written in response to your appeal to 'think deeply', and intended as a student's modest endorsement of the aims which I believed the Government to be pursuing. Two days after I wrote the closing pages, you resigned, but I could find no reason for modifying what I had written: and I am greatly encouraged by reading your speech of yesterday, in which you say that you have not modified your views, in spite of all that has happened. Believe me, Yours sincerely, R. W. Seton-Watson." Anthony Eden's annotations include, on p.82 (the context unclear): "I had to fight hard to secure this result. I believe it to be my chief claim to have contributed something to peace"; on p.221 (commenting on the printed passage 'Herr Hitler, speaking at Munich, said that the German boundaries had always fluctuated and would continue to change until all German peoples were united' and Hitler's doctrine of 'Volkstum'): "I wrote a memo to the Cabinet on this subject. It was much criticised"; on p.352 (in ink (very unusually), the context unclear): "I opposed this many times in vain. See F.O. minutes"; on p.393 (commenting on a speech delivered by Eden in the House of Commons on 1st November 1937 which had included the line 'We are not prepared to stand and deliver at any one's call ... We offer co-operation to all, but will accept dictation from none'): "This is the speech that N.C. [i.e. Neville Chamberlain] disliked so much!". The book also includes a loosely-inserted sheet of writing-paper (headed "Skilts, Redditch") heavily annotated by Eden almost entirely in pencil, on both sides, including the observation: "If the argument is we cannot do under democracy what totalitarianism states do - I disagree - We can but it requires national [?]unity in policy ...", with a note written in ink stating: "The whole meaning of our confidence in freedom is that we can do better." With the same author's Britain in Europe 1789-1914. A Survey of Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 1937, large 8vo, original cloth, without the dust-jacket, with Anthony Eden's old armorial bookplate, and SIGNED in pencil by Anthony Eden on the front free endpaper, with his occasional annotation and highlighting, and with a single sheet loosely-inserted, annotated on both sides). As a long-established supporter of the cause of Czechoslovakia as a free and independent state, Robert Seton-Watson was a committed opponent to Chamberlain's policy of appeasement and Britain and the Dictators contains his impassioned plea against it. In Eden he found a firm ally. (2)