THE STORY OF THE MALAKAND FIELD FORCE
-Silver Library Edition ("New Impression") VARIANT BINDING-
1901
The Silver Library Edition ("New Impression") VARIANT BINDING [1 of 1,000 copies]
Longmans, Green, & Co. Ltd. [London]
Biblio: (Cohen A1.3.c) (Woods A1bb.2)
8vo (340 pages, frontis photo, illustrated, with 6 maps, including 2 foldout in color)
Hardcover [Smooth Red cloth]
Item Number: 14869
$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
Responding to numerous proofing errors in the First English edition of MALAKAND, Winston Churchill quickly prepared a new revised edition that restored the correct text as he’d originally intended it. Issued January 1899 in publisher Longmans’ low-priced “Silver Library” series, this Second Edition constituted the book’s definitive rendering.
This is a very good copy of the Second Printing of this edition, which is, in fact, considerably rarer than the first. The title page states: “NEW IMPRESSION” (rather than “NEW EDITION”). It also adds the byline initial “L.” to Churchill’s name on the title page, and the publishing date: 1901. The Silver Library ‘s 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 here in the standard brownish cloth is clean, square and tight. The spine is moderately faded, the gilt type is not. The endpapers are white and unwatemarked, without the standard swan decorative motif. The contents are fine and unfoxed.
A handsome example and a bit of a hybrid that blends elements of the standard and variant bindings.