Crusade in Europe.

[New York: Doubleday & Company, 1948].

Price: $2,500.00


About the item

Carbon copy typescript, 23 chapters. 2 vols. 4to. In black morocco-grained cloth binders. Some rust and small tears from paper clips at margins, else near fine. Provenance: Bill Robinson; Doug Black.

Item #246019

Carbon copy typescript of Eisenhower’s memoir of the WWII European campaign, Crusade in Europe. With a note from Bill Robinson, Vice-President of the Herald Tribune, giving this typescript to Doug Black, President of Doubleday, the book’s publisher. It was by Robinson’s insistence that Eisenhower wrote these memoirs.

The typescript differs little from the first published edition, with the following edits being the most significant:

Chapters 16 and 17 in the typescript, “Pursuit” and “Battle of Supply” are arranged with slight modification in the published edition as “Pursuit and the Battle of Supply” (chapter 16) and “Autumn Fighting of Germany’s Frontier” (chapter 17).

Chapters 22 and 23, “Europe after V-E Day,” and “Russia” are also re-arranged in the published edition as “Victory’s Aftermath” (chapter 22), “Operation Study” (chapter 23) and “Russia” (chapter 24). The final paragraph of the typescript does not appear in the published edition, and is replaced by an eight paragraph discussion of the merits of democracy in facing the growing threat of Communism.

After a gentlemen’s agreement on Dec 30, 1947, Eisenhower began work on the first draft of Crusade in Europe, completing it March 29, 1948. This draft was finished July 4 of that year and a final typescript, now at Columbia University, was produced before the book was published in the fall of 1948.