Peace, War, and Adventure:

First Edition. Well-written memoir of a fascinating career. Chesterton served in the field train department of the Royal Artillery in the Peninsula and in the war of 1812 - burning of Washington, Baltimore, Battle of New Orleans - and subsequently with the army of Columbia under Bolivar, judge advocate of the British Legion in Venezuela. In later life he was governor of the house of correction at Cold Bath Fields, and a noted prison reformer. Uncommon (COPAC has Oxford, BL and NLS only) and here highly attractive.

2 volumes, 8vo (196 × 122 mm). Contemporary midnight blue full calf, double fillet panel with small dog-rose devices at the corners to the boards, spine ornately gilt in compartments, marbled edges. Eton leaving inscription from Viscount Suirdale, later fifth earl of Donoughmore, Conservative politician, to Douglas J. G. Stanley. A clean and extremely attractive set.