The england of elizabeth: The Structure of Society

London: Macmillan & Co., 1950. xv, [1], 546pp, [2]. With a photographic frontispiece and a further 23 photographic plates. Original publisher's green cloth, lettered in gilt to spine and upper board. A trifle rubbed. Internally clean and crisp. Anthony Eden's copy, without overt indication of such. Presentation copy, ink inscription to recto of FFEP: This small tribute of admiration for the statesman and with the best wishes of the author. AL Rowse. Nov 1950'. The first edition of historian Alfred Leslie Rowse's (1903-1997) authoritative social history of Elizabethan England. Sir Anthony Eden (1897-1977), British foreign secretary (1935-38, 1940-45, and 1951-55) and Prime Minister (1955-1957). Following active service in the First World War, Eden read Oriental languages at Oxford. He was elected to the House of Commons in 1923. In 1935 he was appointed foreign secretary, a position he resigned in 1938 to protest Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Nazi Germany. When Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, he was named secretary of state for war, and later during the Second World War once more served as foreign secretary. Eden succeeded Churchill as Prime Minister in 1955. In 1956, his failure to respond effectively during the Suez Crisis, and the subsequent loss of party and public support, would ultimately lead to his resignation from office in 1957. He was knighted in 1954 and created earl of Avon in 1961. . First edition. 8vo.