Odette
( SOE ) ( SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE ) TICKELL, Jerrard
IN FULL MOROCCO
Published: Chapman & Hall, 1949
Stock code: 20657
Price: £494.00
8vo., First Edition, on laid paper, with portrait frontispiece and 16 plates on 15; handsomely bound in burgundy full morocco, sides with gilt frame border, back with raised bands, second and fourth compartments lettered and ruled in gilt, all other compartments tooled and ruled in gilt, gilt top, uncut, hand-made endpapers, ribbon marker, custom-made slip case, a most attractive copy ideal as a gift or for presentation.
An SOE classic. Odette Churchill (nee Sansom) was one of the most famous SOE agents of WWII. Operating under the code-name 'Lise' she dropped into occupied France where she was eventually captured, imprisoned and tortured first at Fresnes and finally at Ravensbruck. One of the few FANY agents to survive the war, she was awarded the George Cross for gallantry and subsequently married fellow-SOE agent Captain Peter Churchill ('Raoul'). Foot (p.463) describes this account as 'a popular and partly fictionalised life; accurate in parts'. Certainly it is one of the half-dozen or so key works relating to SOE agents in France and the basis of Herbert Wilcox's feature film (1950) starring Anna Neagle and Trevor Howard. Enser, p.401; Foot, p.463.