Winston S. Churchill: 'The River War. An Historical Account ...

Hammer

£170

Winston S. Churchill: 'The River War. An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan. Edited by Col. F. Rhodes. Illustrated by Angus McNeill, Seaforth Highlanders.', London, Longmans, Green & Co, June 1900, 1st edition, 3rd impression, 2 volumes, "Only 140 copies of the third printing were ever made available. it is far and away the scarcest of the first-edition printings" (Ronald I. Cohen, Churchill bibliographer), ex Prahran library, photogravure portrait frontispiece to volume 1 + 4 other portrait plates (lacks frontis of Kitchener to volume 2, else complete), one full-page photogravure to the text, 50 wood-engravings to the text by Angus Neil, 23 colour maps and battle plans, all but 3 folding (folding map vol.I facing p.146 "The Dervish Empire" with neat tape repair), 11 maps to the text of which 2 full-page, recased, retaining original publisher's dark blue cloth, with lettering and pictorial decorations to spines and front covers in gilt, replenished end papers and pastedowns, volume I with publisher's 32pp catalogue of adverts at end. This was Churchill's second book, after The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898). "Overcoming the objections of Kitchener, the commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force, Churchill obtained a temporary posting with the 21st lancers, and arrived in the Sudan in time to take part in the celebrated cavalry charge at the battle of Omdurman (2 September 1898), in which the regiment galloped by accident into a hidden ravine crammed with armed men. Churchill, who shot and killed at least three of the enemy with his Mauser pistol, was cool and courageous but lucky to survive a bout of hand-to-hand fighting in which 22 British officers and men were killed. [In The River War] the story of the campaign is firmly embedded in a remarkably sympathetic history of the Sudanese revolt against Egyptian rule" (ODNB). Churchill himself graphically described his account as "a tale of blood and war". Cohen A2.1.d; Langworth pp. 27-29; Woods A2(a) (2)