YOSHIDA, Shigeru (1878-1967). The Yoshida Memoirs, Boston, 1962, large 8vo, original black buckram. FIRST EDITION, IMPORTANT PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed by the author to Anthony Eden.

YOSHIDA, Shigeru (1878-1967).  The Yoshida Memoirs. The Story of Japan in Crisis ... Translated by Kenichi Yoshida. Boston [Mass.]: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1962. Large 8vo (212 x 145mm). Half title. Original black buckram, spine lettered in gilt, uncut (inner hinges split, without the dust-jacket). Provenance: Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (modern armorial bookplate loosely-inserted). FIRST EDITION, IMPORTANT PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed on the front free endpaper, "Rt. Hon. the Earl of Avon, from the Author, Shigeru Yoshida." The author was Prime Minister of Japan from 1946 to 1947 and from 1949 to 1955. On p.118 he gives a printed account of a meeting with Queen Elizabeth and Anthony Eden: "Worthy of special mention was the audience given me by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace on 26 October [1954]. Only Sir Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, was in attendance and I recall being very much impressed by Her Majesty's manner in which a natural dignity and youthfulness of appearance seemed so well blended. I was also impressed by Sir Anthony's behaviour towards the Queen; there was in it a mixture of respect and affection which I am told the British people universally entertain towards their sovereign, and seeing Her Majesty in person made me realise why this was so." On p.120 Yoshida gives a printed account of his friendship with Anthony Eden: "At a meeting called for the purpose of hearing such British grievances [regarding trade with Japan], Foreign Secretary Eden, in introducing me, remarked that I had come to London as Japanese Ambassador shortly after his own appointment to the post of Foreign Secretary before the Second World War, and that we had remained friends ever since."