Muddling Through Or, Britain in a nutshell

London: Victor Gollancz, 1936. FIRST EDITION, ASSOCIATION COPY. Large 8vo, pp. [150] with b/w illustrations. Blue cloth, paper title label to spine (toned). A little rubbed, corners and edges bumped. Edges dusty. Lady Ellen Askwith's inscription in black pen, and flamboyant hand (for M. R. Fletcher?), to half-title: "With love & very best/ wishes/ from Ellen Askwith," Fletcher armorial ex-libris to front pastedown, featuring intertwined "MRF," foxing to front. Else, clean and tidy. Good+ Hon. Eleanor Theodora Roby Benson (1906-1968) and Hon. Betty Ellen Askwith (1909-1995) collaborated with Nicolas Bentley (1907-1998; then, three years shy of illustrating T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats) on a clutch of commercially successful 'In a nutshell' titles of fashionably flippant humour. Both women had writing careers, Benson as a travel writer and novelist (under 'T.B.') and Askwith as a biographer. Lady Ellen Askwith (n�e Peel; 1909-1962) was the mother of Betty Askwith, and, like her daughter, an author, having turned her hand to journalism following the death of her first husband; she published two novels as Mrs Henry Graham. Lady Askwith was appointed C.B.E. in 1918, for her work during WWI with the YMCA and national kitchens (ODNB for George Ranken Asquith).