E.M. Forster, The Story of the Siren, first edition, [one of 500 copies], signed by the author

E.M. Forster, The Story of the Siren, first edition, [one of 500 copies], signed by the author with a strike through the printed name, Printed by Leonard & Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, Paradise Road, Richmond, 1920, blue marbled effect cover, dedication to the inside first page Alexis and Jill

Provenance: The estate of A.P Vlasto (Fellow of Kings College Cambridge)

Alexis Peter Vlasto

In 1939 Vlasto was headhunted to work at the British code breaking establishment Bletchley Park. He was seconded from Cambridge University where he was to undertake ‘War Work’. He was given the responsibility of the Japanese Army Air Force section where he would aid in cracking the Japanese Army Air Force code system 3366. Vlasto was one of a team of people assigned to this task alongside Maurice Wiles and Mervyn Jones.

Whilst at Bletchley Park Vlasto met the young musicologist Hilda Joan ‘Jill’ Medway who was also on secondment from Cambridge and by the time the war had ended in May 1945 Vlasto and Medway were married (they married on 19 March 1945).