MACDONALD, James Ramsay.

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Wanderings and Excursions. First Traveller's Library edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the initial blank, to the influential society hostess, Edith Helen Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Marchioness of Londonderry (1878-1959), "With my very best wishes J. Ramsay Macdonald (Hamish)" In their private correspondence, Macdonald referred to himself as "Hamish" and Vane-Tempest-Stewart to herself as "Circe". Her bookplate is on the front pastedown.Lady Londonderry was appointed colonel-in-chief of the Women's Volunteer Reserve, resigning her position in 1915 to establish the Women's Legion, "an organization designed to train women to release men for active service; initially providing cooks for the army, it developed administrative and clerical branches, and an agriculture section, in which she took particular interest" (ODNB). She was the first woman to be appointed DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Military Division) upon the order's establishment in 1917. Her beautifully designed and engraved bookplate incorporates the glamorous portrait by Philip de Laszlo showing her in uniform, against a background of elements of the work of the Women's Legion.Ramsay Macdonald, the British prime minister from 1929 to 1935, formed a strong friendship with Edith in the 1930s, for which he was much criticized. She filled, in part, the loss he felt following the death of his wife in 1911. "For a while friendship with the flamboyant Conservative hostess Lady Londond

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