THE STORY OF THE MALAKAND FIELD FORCE
[First Colonial Library Hardcover Edition]
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Winston [W. Spencer] Churchill
First Colonial Library Edition [1 of 1,075 copies]
(Cohen A1.2.a) (Woods A1ab)
1898
Longmans Green & Co. [London]
8vo (337 pages, with frontis portrait and 6 maps, including 2 fold-out in color)
Hardcover [Blackish-blue on Greenish-grey cloth]
x18
First Editions by Winston Churchill
Churchill at Chartwell
206352
THE STORY OF THE MALAKAND FIELD FORCE
Churchill's first book: true-life military adventures drawn from newspaper despatches filed by the 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.
This is an astonishingly fresh, virtually mint, copy of the rare First Colonial Library hardcover edition that was "intended for circulation only in India and the British colonies." Typographically, the front cover is also an undocumented variant, with Churchill's name rendered as "W. Spencer Churchill." absent the initial "L." that is commonly present. The "L" was dropped on all Second Edition covers. The title page here, however, conforms to the First Edition. Harsher climate conditions in the colonies generally resulted in low survival rates for these volumes. Thus, the freshness of this example is so striking. The spine is unfaded; as strongly colored as the front and rear faces. The gilt titles are bright. The binding is crisp, tight and square, with sharp corners. The contents are fine and virtually unfoxed. Simply an exceptional copy.
Bibliographic numbers (in parentheses) are from Frederick Woods' original Churchill bibliography (Woods), as emended by Richard Langworth in his Connoisseur's Guide; and from the new, greatly expanded Churchill bibliography by Ronald Cohen (Cohen).
