The Story of My Experiments with Truth

Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press, 1933. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good +/Very good-. Large octavo. Volume I is the second printing, issued in 1933, and volume II is the first printing, issued in 1929. Issued separately, the set is rarely found together, almost never with both volumes retaining their original dust jackets. Volume I is near fine, with very gentle foxing to endpapers, but the contents crisp, clean, and bright. Gentle fading to some fo the canvas/burlap cloth. In the exceedingly rare dust jacket, which has a few small chips and tears, most notably on the spine, but with no large pieces missing; very good. Volume II is very good, with some fading to the spine, the inner hinges thinly cracked, but holding, and some gentle foxing to the fore-edge. Most pages unopened, and the contents quite clean. The jacket has a tidemark at the base, and some chips at the extremities, most notably the crown, which has a few letters missing from the word "Autobiography," printed at the top; overall about very good. Both volumes bear the 1934 ownership inscription of "J. Wesley Jones," who is certainly John Wesley Jones, a U.S. diplomat who served in the State Department for thirty years, and spent some of his earliest days in India (per an interview he conducted late in life with the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, he "spent his 25th birthday in Calcutta," which comports with the date of the inscription.) Both volumes are fragile and rather cheaply produced, and reprinted many times after Gandhi rose to international fame as the father of modern India. Both of the first two printings of volume I are scarce in commerce, as is the first printing of the second volume, and they are hardly ever seen in commerce in their dust jackets. A rare and very important set of one of the great autobiograhpies of the 20th century.