Orde Wingate biographies signed first editions Trevor Royle / Christopher Sykes

Association copies signed from the authors to Enid "Peggy" Jelley, Orde Wingate's Fiance
 
Two volumes consisting of:
Orde Wingate by Christopher Sykes, by Collins, London in 1956; 
Orde Wingate Irregular Soldier by Trevor Royle, by Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, London in 1995
 
First volume: Orde Wingate by Christopher Sykes, 8vo, with the Kenneth Farnhill dust wrapper, along with salmon boards with gilt lettering on the spine; pages [6], 7-575, [1]; the jacket is unclipped displaying the price 35s. net.; minor wear to the spine ends with a couple of tiny tear to the top edge of the upper panel; corners of boards are lightly bumped; some light foxing to the first 3 or 4 pages; Overall a very good copy. 
 
First UK edition and signed by the author Christopher Sykes to Peggy Jelley on the front free end paper. The inscription reads "For Peggy, with sincere regards and gratitude, Christopher. March 1959".  
 
Second volume: Orde Wingate Irregular Soldier by Trevor Royle, 8vo, with a photographic dust wrapper, the photos front and back provided with permission of the Imperial War Museum; Brown cloth binding with gilt lettering on the spine; pages [xii] 1-355 [i]; the jacket is unclipped and has several light dirt marks, bumps and wear across the panels and spine; The cloth is bumped to the lower corners; overall a very good copy. 
 
First UK edition and signed by the author Trevor Royle to Enid "Peggy" Jelley to the title page. The inscription reads "This copy is for Peggy, with the thanks and best wishes of Trevor Roper". Also tucked in loosely is a card written by Royle to Peggy Jelley, with his address at the top and dated 9.3.95, before publication. He writes on the card "Dear Peggy, as you rightly forecast, Orde has been a very difficult man to pin down - so elusive, so mercurial - but i did my level best! I can't thank you enough for giving me so much help and encouragement. What an exceptional man. Though - life will seem quite different now that the book is finished. Publication is on April 10, by the way. I hope we may meet again before too long. Yours, Trevor Roper". 
 
Peggy Jelley was Orde Wingate's partner between 1927 and 1933, and was engaged to him during the last 2 or 3 of those years. She assisted both biographers and gave them insights into the man himself. She said of Wingate, that when her family first met him her sister thought he was "such a strange young man, half humorous, half morose". Peggy soon became close companions with him whenever he was back from his military duty and they wrote to each other with regularity. It wasn't until their engagement to be married was announced that Wingate met someone else: his future wife Lorna, whilst travelling back on a ship from the Sudan. Peggy and Wingate called the engagement off, but Peggy gave a clear recollection of him to both biographers, Christopher Sykes and more so to Trevor Roper, where she recalls the times she spent with him but also how devastated she was that the engagement to him was over. She said of this that he had 'beaten to death an innocent dove'. Despite this, she would go on to be loyal to the memory of Wingate and both biographers expressly thanked her in the acknowledgements section of both books.  
 
Orde Wingate, would claim immortality and national hero status, being one of Winston Churchill's trusted military experts. He led 77 Brigade during the second world war - known as the Chindits, who under his unusual brand of leadership contributed to turning the tide of conflict in Burma. Churchill would go on to say about Wingate after his premature death in 1944, that he was "a man of genius who might well have become also a man of destiny."  An interesting association between the subject matter Orde Wingate and the previous owner of the books, his fiance Peggy Jelley, who is discussed, is present in photos and contributed her recollections to both biographies.