[MOUNTBATTEN OF BURMA, LOUIS, EARL]. Mountbatten: Eighty Years in Pictures. London: Published by Macmillan, 1979.
FIRST LIMITIED EDITION. Copy # 15 of 50, specially bound by Zaehnsdorf for Stanley George Uzzell. Leather-bound, hardcover in solander box, quarto (25cm x 19cm x 3cm), pp. 224. English text. Stunningly bound by Zaehnsdorf in dark red full morocco gilt, raised bands to spine, all page edges gilt, with Cosway-style oval inset hand-painted miniature portrait of Mountbatten to front board, floral rolls to turn-ins gilt, vellum inset with coloured and gilt coat of arms to front pastedown, blue moiré silk liners, hand-written limitation page, profusely illustrated throughout, 2 folding tables to rear, 2 plates to rear showing a signed letter and H.M.S. Liverpool. Housed in the original dark red quarter morocco solander box, gilt crest on front, signature on reverse, lined interior. Additionally supplied with 3 catalogues and 2 tickets for the unveiling of the statue of Admiral of the Fleet the Earl Mountbatten on Foreign Office Green by Her Majesty the Queen, plus a hand-signed letter by the author. Condition: NEAR FINE. The book is immaculate and finely preserved, the solander box shows some light mottling around the edges. Scarce thus.
Notes: From “A Royal Childhood” to “The Mediterranean and After,” ten chapters filled with images plus straight-forward text on the life of Louis Mountbatten (1900-1979). This book went to press the same year that an Irish Republican Army bomb ended Mountbatten’s life by blowing up his small boat off the coast of Ireland, taking his life and several others, including his grandson, Nicholas Knatchbull aged 14. Family tree at the back together with a letter and colour photograph of his flagship H.M.S. Liverpool. Presented in a Cosway-style binding by Zaehnsdorf with a handsome miniature colour cameo of Lord Mountbatten in uniform at the centre of the front board; covers are in burgundy leather with lined box. Includes some related ephemera with signature.
