pub. Jonathan Cape, London, First Edition, 1944, Stated First Edition, softcover 8vo without dj, 9 Chapters, illustrated with RAF logo to front cover, 72pps. 7½" x 4¾" 72 pp. Scarce.

• 72 clean pages with 9 short stories about the RAF with the text in French.

Condition: card cover with title to spine, STRAIGHT, CLEAN & TIGHT in GOOD minus CONDITION with slight rubbing and light abrading to extremities, slight age-toning to ROBUST pages. Name in pen to inside cover. Scarce.

  First edition publisher's original card covers, RAF wings in blue title block to mid panel.

Herbert Ernest Bates, CBE (16 May 1905 – 29 January 1974), better known as H. E. Bates, was an English writer and author. His best-known works include Love for Lydia, The Darling Buds of May, and My Uncle Silas.

• During World War II he was commissioned into the RAF solely to write short stories. The Air Ministry realised that the populace was less concerned with facts and figures about the war than it was with reading about those who were fighting it. The stories were originally published in the News Chronicle under the pseudonym of “Flying Officer X”. Later they were published in book form as The Greatest People in the World and Other Stories.
• This First Edition, dated 1944 was probably published in French for distribution in France after D-Day.
• The British Publishers Guild was a war time grouping of a large number of British Publishers who co-operated in the publication of a comprehensive list of important books of universal appeal, published in paper covers at a very low price. The first Guild Books appeared in February 1941. Some fifty titles were published with great success. During the war Bates, who was recruited by the Public Relations branch of the Air Ministry, wrote under the name 'Flying Officer X' and filed stirring reports of heroism and action, particularly of front line aircrews. Published in a French translation [no translator named], and for the first time published under his own name, rather than his 'Flying Officer X' pseudonym.