GAGARIN YURI: (1934-1968) Soviet cosmonaut, the first human to journey into outer space, travelling on Vostok 1, 12^th April 1961. A rare book signed and inscribed, being a hardback edition of Doroga v Kosmos - Zapiski letika-kosmonavta SSSR (´Road to Space - Notes of a USSR´s pilot-cosmonaut´), First Edition published in Russian text by Izdatel stvo ´Pravda´, Moscow, 1961. The volume features numerous images and illustrations as well as a foreword by Nikolai Kamanin, manager of the Soviet space programme with the responsibility of selecting Gagarin for the flight on Vostok 1, and recounts the story of the modest young man from humble beginnings, and his path from a war-torn Russia, through his work as a mechanic and later an aviator, to his epoch making journey into space. Signed by Gagarin in bold, dark fountain pen ink to the front free endpaper with an inscription in Russian to Vladimir Petrovich Konobeev and dated at London, 14th July 1961 in Gagarin´s hand. Bound in the publisher´s original cloth and accompanied by the dust jacket. A rare signed presentation copy of Gagarin´s memoir, dated just a few months after his historic spaceflight, and with an interesting association. Some light age wear, largely to the edges of the dust jacket, ond one bump to the upper right corner of the front board. About VG

Yuri Gagarin visited the United Kingdom three months after his Vostok 1 mission as part of a world tour. On 14th July 1961 (the same day that the present book was signed) Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip hosted Gagarin and a Soviet delegation to breakfast at Buckingham Palace. A total of sixteen people attended the reception, including Nikolai Kaminin, the Soviet ambassador to London Alexander Soldatov, and his deputy, Soviet assistant air attache Vladimir Petrovich Konobeev, to whom Gagarin inscribed the present book.