Long Walk To Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. by Mandela, Nelson - 1994

London: Little, Brown and Company, 1994. First British edition of the first autobiography of one of the greatest moral leaders of the twentieth century which has went on to sell over six million copies worldwide. Octavo, original black cloth, cartographic endpapers, illustrated with photographs. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the title page, "To Dr. Ivan May Compliments and best wishes to a public figure who cares. Nelson Mandela 6.1.95." The recipient Ivan May, was academician and humanitarian, who worked closely with The Nelson Mandela Foundation. He was described by the foundation as "a groundbreaking leader in the sphere of giving." Inscription of the recipient on the half-title page, near fine in a very good dust jacket. "The Nelson Mandela who emerges from his memoir is considerably more human than the icon of legend Mandela is, on the evidence of his amazing life, neither a messiah nor a moralist nor really a revolutionary but a pragmatist to the core, a shrewd balancer of honor and interests. He is, to use a word unhappily fallen into disrepute, a politician, though one distinguished from lesser practitioners of his calling mainly by his unwavering faith in his ultimate objective, ending white minority rule" (New York Times). Long Walk To Freedom won the Alan Paton Award in 1995. It was adapted into a film titled Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom directed by Justin Chadwick, written by William Nicholson, and produced by Anant Singh, starring Idris Elba.