THE STORY OF THE MALAKAND FIELD FORCE
-Silver Library Edition ("New Impression")-
1901
The Silver Library Edition ("New Impression") [1 of 1,000 copies]
Longmans, Green, & Co. Ltd. [London]
Biblio: (Cohen A1.3.b) (Woods A1bb.2)
8vo (340 pages, tissue guarded frontis photo, illustrated with 6 maps, including 2 foldout in color)
Hardcover [Dark Red-ish-Brown cloth]
Item Number: 213720
$1,000.00
Collector's Guide
The Story of the Malakand Field Force was Winston Churchill’s first book, a chronicle of true-life military adventures drawn from newspaper dispatches filed by the then-22-year-old correspondent while serving on India’s Afghanistan-bordering Northwest Frontier under Major-General Sir Bindon Blood. Wrenching to read how little has changed in this region since Churchill’s time. The First Edition is easily distinguished by its apple-green cloth binding but Malakand is prized by collectors in almost any edition.
Description
A very good copy of the Second Printing, which is, in fact, considerably rarer than the first. The title page states “NEW IMPRESSION.” It also adds the byline initial “L.” to Churchill’s name on the title page, and the publishing date: 1901. The Silver Library ship logo is transferred in larger format to the third free endpaper, with a revised “Bibliographical Note” on the verso containing the full reprint date (February, 1901) and a boxed advertisement for Churchill’s four subsequent books. The binding, in the dark red-ish-brown cloth, is clean, square and tight, with unusually bright and unfaded cloth that is here and there scuffed but extraordinarily lustrous. The spine and its gilt typography are uniquely unfaded. The distinctive swan decorated endpapers are as in the First Printing (but with the date “1724” corrected from the first printing’s “1726”). There is a vintage award presentation plate on the front pastedown (from Liverpool) The contents have scattered foxing throughout and a few roughly cut pages. Else fine.