We Followed Our Stars.

COOK, Ida. [Mary Burchell].

Item Number: 115069

London: Mills & Boon Limited, 1956.

First Mills & Boon edition of the author’s autobiography, first published in Great Britain in 1950 by Hamish Hamilton. Octavo, original cloth, illustrated. Signed by the author on the front free endpaper with both her given and pen name, “Ida Cook (Mary Burchell).” Near fine in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by Rosemary Slattery. Books signed by Burchell are rare.

Between 1936 and 1985, British novelist Ida Cook wrote 122 romance novels, under the pen name Mary Burchell, to fund the escape of nearly 30 Jews during World War II. She helped to found, and from 1966 to 1986 was the second president of, the Romantic Novelists' Association. In 1950, Cook published her autobiography, We Followed Our Stars, later re-edited and expanded as Safe Passage, which is currently in print.