ALDINGTON, RICHARD. Death of a Hero. New York: Covici-Friede, 1929. 8vo, original rough beige cloth, endpapers cracked at inner hinges; dust jacket (a bit frayed at ends of spine and fore-corners); cloth case. FIRST EDITION of Aldington's major Great War novel, PRESENTATION COPY TO HIS PUBLISHER, inscribed by the author at top of front free end-paper: "To Donald Friede, without whose encouragement this book might never have been finished. From Richard Aldington." Below the inscription Aldington has written out the eight "Omitted passages" in the book (represented by asterisks in the text of the seven pages where they occur); the passages, comprising about 125 words (plus page numbers) in Aldington's hand, were expurgated because of their sexual content. This American first edition of Death of a Hero contains fewer expurgations than the English edition, which followed by a few weeks; the first unexpurgated version was published in Paris in 1930. The novel is largely based on Aldington's service on the West Front, during which he suffered both from poison gas and from severe shellshock. Kershaw 52; Blunden, et al, p.8; Lohf-Reese Halladay, Soldier Poets of the Great War (New York: The Grolier Club, 1988), p. [7].