New Impression of the Silver Library Edition of Churchill's first book, “with considerable alterations in make-up and binding”, based on his exploits with the Malakand field force lend by Sir Bindon Blood on the north-west frontier of India in 1897, which Churchill accompanied as a war correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. As he was still in India, the checking of the proofs was undertaken “by an uncle of mine, a very brilliant man and himself a ready writer. For some reason or other he missed many scores of misprints and made no attempt to organise the punctuation.” This led to a some fairly severe comments, these however mixed with compliments: “The Athenæum said ‘Pages of Napier punctuated by a mad printer’s reader’” (My Early Life). One reader unstinting in his praise was the prime minister, Lord Salisbury, who called Churchill for a personal interview and expressed his “admiration not only for its matter but for its style” and thought it a “truer picture” of events than any other documents he had read. The reception of Malakand was key in convincing Churchill that he could live by the pen, as well as by the sword.
Small 8vo. Portrait frontispiece of Sir Bindon Blood and 6 folding colour maps. Ex-Good’s Library, Officer’s Mess 2nd Bn. PWO West Yorkshire Regiment, bookplates to the front endpapers. Marginal browning, a little shaken in the original plum cloth, slightly rubbed, upper board creased.
