THE RIVER WAR: An Account of the Re-conquest of the Sudan
-English Abridged One-Volume "Cheap" Edition (Third "Wartime" Printing) in the Rare Dust Jacket-
1940 [1941]
English Abridged One-Volume "Cheap" Edition (Third Printing)
Eyre & Spottiswoode [London]
Biblio: (Cohen A2.4.c) (Woods A2d)
8vo (381 pages, 22 maps, many folding, some two-color.)
Hardcover (with Dust Jacket) [Greyish-purple cloth]
Item Number: 14889
$1,850.00
Collector's Guide
The River War was Winston Churchill’s second book, a brilliant history of British involvement in the Sudan and an account of the fierce campaign for its reconquest that Churchill himself participated in and, in many significant ways, disapproved of. Originally published in two large, lavish and, today, extremely rare volumes, THE RIVER WAR was abridged by Churchill himself for a 1902 one-volume edition. All subsequent editions have been versions of Churchill’s abridgement.
Description
This is a very good copy, in the rare dust jacket, of the Third, and by far the rarest printing of the so-called “Cheap Edition,” issued on February 28, 1941, according to bibliographer Ronald Cohen, despite the publisher’s indicated 1940 publication date. Produced using the original plates from the first abridged edition of 1902, the “Cheap Edition” remains important bibliographically for the new Introduction that Churchill wrote for it. The unclipped dust jacket here has toned unevenly along the spine, with edge-chipping at the spine head, some faint creases and scratches front and rear, and two fractional losses along the rear upper jacket edge. The cloth is clean and crisp with a tiny crunch to the front upper corner. The contents are nearly fine, with a fractional separation just beginning at the front hinge and specks of foxing to the rear pastedown only. Quite a handsome copy.