Les Hommes de Bonne Volonté.

Attractively bound in full calf.

Presentation copy, dedicated in the first volume "A Francesca et Juan Simeón Vidarte, avec cordial hommage, en souvenir de notre exil commun, leur ami Jules Romain, Mexico, janvier 1944.; vols. 2 - 20 signed by Romains on the title page; dedication in vol. 21: "A Francesca et Juan Simeon Vidarte, leur ami Jules Romains, Mexico, 1º Janvier 1944; vol. 22: "A Francesca et Juan Simeon Vidarte, avec ma nouvelle plus americaine, Mexico 1º Janvier 1944. "
Vols. 1 - 18, Éditions de la Maison Française, New York, no date (1941), 2nd ed.; Vols. 19 - 22, Éditions de la Maison Française, New York, 1941 - 1943, 1st ed.; vols. 23 - 27, Flammarion, Paris 1944 - 1946, 1st ed.
Romains left France ahead of the German armies in 1940, settling first in the USA, where the Maison Française, sponsored by the University of Columbia reissued the first 18 volumes of his roman fleuve 'Les Hommes de Bonne Volonté', and continuing the publication of the following four volumes, when Romains moved to Mexico. He returned to France after the country was retaken by the allies, and the final five volumes were published by Flammarion in Paris. It was in his Mexican exile that Romain became friends with Spanish refugees Juan Simeón Vidarte and his wife Francesca Linares. Vidarte had been a politician with the Spanish republic, (secretary of the parliament, and later ambassador in Tangiers) and had been in charge of negotiations with the Mexican government for the arrival of tens of thousands of republican exiles after the fascist victory. Rubbing to some of the spines; an attractively bound presentation set.