Quit India.

Bombay: Padma Publications Ltd.. 1942.

Revised and enlarged third edition, third reprint of September 1942. 183x120mm. pp. [12], 84. Original paper wrappers bound into black cloth boards. The fragile wrappers are a little soiled scuffed and with some surface damage. Leaves are browned but overall a very good copy of one of the twentieth century's most influential works of civil disobedience.
August 1942 was a critical month for Gandhi and the movement to free India from the British Empire. On 8th August he delivered his "Quit India speech" in which he called upon Indians to "Do or Die". The same month, this book was published. It is, essentially, Gandhi's manifesto for a free India, setting out his aims and arguments in much fuller detail. The speech might have been lit the fire of independence but this short, clever, impassioned book kept the flame alive. The publishing history is somewhat strange. There were three editions issued in August 1942 and a further two printings of the third edition that month with this third reprinting appearing in September. Although reasonably well held institutionally in the US, there are (perhaps unsurprisingly) only two copies in the UK - at the BL and Bodleian. And none appear in the auction records. A rare and important work.