New Acquisitions Spring 2022 – 30 – Bauman Rare Books John F. Kennedy’s First Book, Boldly Signed By Him 34. KENNEDY, John F. Why England Slept. NewYork, 1940. Octavo, original red cloth, dust jacket. $14,000. First edition, third printing, of John F. Kennedy’s first book, issued one month after the first printing, of JFK’s striking analysis of Britain’s lack of preparation for WWII, signed by him. Published the year JFK graduated from Harvard, Why England Slept was an expansion of his senior thesis. The title is a variation on the title of Churchill’s While England Slept, issued about two years before. Kennedy’s work focuses on why England was so poorly prepared for WWII and why its leaders settled upon the disastrous policies of appeasement. The book served as a warning to those in America who felt that appeasing Hitler and staying out of the war were viable options. JFK’s signature is notorious among collectors for its variation over the years; this is an excellent example of his early signature. In a dust jacket supplied from another copy of the third printing (which differs substantially from the first-printing dust jacket). An about-fine signed copy.
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