Unfinished Journey. Autobiography (with 3 original letters by the author)

Born 100 years ago last month, the violinist Yehudi Menuhin is still remembered both as a child prodigy and as a virtuoso player and conductor in his maturity.

This autobiography was published in 1977 and includes photographs taken on his 60th birthday the year before. 

This copy includes personal letter from Menuhin to a daughter and mother in South Africa who reported on the death of African musicologist Hugh Tracey, the musician-doctor Garcia and current news of the Polly Street Centre in Johannesburg previously visited by Yehudi and his wife, Diana; also the reason for his visit in 1971 to Russia. The letters (see the images, which include the bookplate of one of his correspondents, the former director of the Port Elizabeth art gallery) were written in 1977, the year of publication of this book, as well as in 1978.

Colour photographic dustjacket (unclipped, price 5.95 pounds). Blue cloth-boards with gilt lettering to the spine. Plain primrose endpapers. xvii + 393 pp of text and index + 4 gloss-art sections with a total of 64 pp of photographs dating from 1924 to 1976.

The book includes George Steiner's short essay "Not a Preface, But a Word of Thanks", which includes this paragraph:

• "To find genius and happiness united is nearly a scandal. Ordinarily those to whom the gods give their largesse are envied, even hated, by their peers and contemporaries. Yehudi Menuhin is probably the most widely loved personality in the history of the performing arts. It was so after his triumphant debut in 1927; it is so today."

CONDITION. Lightly edge-chipped dust jacket. Cover boards fine. Tightly bound. Owner signature and year on front free endpaper. No other marks, foxing or other discolouration.