BAPU'S LETTERS TO MIRA (1924-1948)

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author 'Mirabehn'. Publisher's original khadi cloth backed blue paper covered boards with titles in black to the upper board and spine. Portrait frontispiece and two further photographic plates. Illustrations within the text. Errata slip at p.67. A very good copy, the binding square and firm with some bumping and mild wear to the tips of the darkened spine and corners. The boards are a little marked. The contents, lightly spotted to the endpapers are otherwise clean throughout.

Inscribed in blue ink on the front endpaper "To Lucy / with love / from / Mira / (Madeleine) / Pashulok / India / 17.11.49". Scarce thus. One of 5,000 copies printed of the first edition of this collection of nearly 400 letters sent by Monhandas Gandhi to his close friend, the prominent British supporter of the Indian Independence Movement and passionate proponent of Gandhian principles, Madeleine Slade (1892-1982). The daughter of a Rear-Admiral, Slade discovered Gandhi after reading Romain Rolland's biography 'Mahatma Gandhi' in 1924. Convinced of Gandhi's arguments and philosophy, shortly after reading Rolland's work she wrote to Gandhi asking to become his disciple and inquiring whether she could come to live with him at the Sabarmati Ashram. Gandhi agreed and Slade arrived in Ahmedabad on 7th November 1925, commencing a stay in India that would last almost thirty-four years. Adopting an ascetic lifestyle, including vegetarianism, spinning and teetotalism and also learning Hindi, Slade threw herself both personally and politically into the struggle for a new, independent India. Working alongside Gandhi during a key phase in his leadership of the independence movement, Slade travelled with him to the Round Table Conference in London in 1931 and was later arrested and detained with him in the Aga Khan Palace between August 1942 and May 1944. She also played a particularly notable role in attempting to persuade foreign leaders of India's cause, meeting with Lloyd George, Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt, amongst others.