Band of Brothers, inscribed and dated by the author: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. This is the first edition, first printing, inscribed and dated by the author. Ambrose inked his inscription in five lines on the recto of the page preceding the title page: For Greg | Best wishes | S E Ambrose | Appleton | 9/13/96. The only other previous ownership mark is a gift inscription inked in four lines on the front free endpaper recto: To Gregg | Happy Birthday 1992 | With love | Mother & Dad . We are fortunate to know the provenance of this copy, which we acquired from the original owners family, who purchased the book in 1992 and had it inscribed by Ambrose four years later.

Condition is near fine in a very good dust jacket. The quarter purple cloth binding over tan paper-covered boards remains clean, bright, and tight. We note only tiny bumps to the upper corners, a hint of wrinkling to the spine ends, and a small, unobtrusive scratch to the lower left of the spine, corresponding to a small hole in the dust jacket. The contents remain bright and clean. The dust jacket has a neatly price-clipped upper front flap and the aforementioned small hole at the lower spine, to the left of the publishers device, as well as mild spine toning. The jacket is otherwise bright, clean, and complete and is now protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.

Band of Brothers tells the story of a parachute infantry company E Easy Company, 506th Regiment in the 101st Airborne Division in the European Theater during the Second World War. The author, prolific and widely-read historian Stephen Edward Ambrose (1936-2002), was known for biographies of Eisenhower, for whom he was commissioned to write the official biography, as well as Nixon, and wrote many American history books, some of which became bestsellers. Nonetheless, perhaps none of his titles is now as well-known as Band of Brothers.

Ambroses book rests upon interviews he conducted with veterans of Easy Company as part of a project to collect oral histories of D-Day for the National D-Day Museum in Ambroses home city, New Orleans. Ambrose borrowed the books title from the St. Crispins Day speech delivered by King Henry before the Battle of Agincourt in William Shakespeares play Henry V. A decade after it was published, this book was adapted to make a 2001 eponymous, high-profile, award-winning miniseries produced by Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks.