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 [Red-ish Brown 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
A very good copy of the Second Printing of this edition, which is, in fact, considerably rarer than the first printing. 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 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 is the variant red-ish brown cloth. It is clean, square and tight. The spine is moderately faded, the gilt type is not. The endpapers are white and un-watermarked, without the swan decorative motif. The contents are fine and unfoxed.
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.
A handsome example and a bit of a hybrid that blends elements of the standard and variant bindings.