February 2022 Catalogue

First Edition Of Churchill’s Important Second Book, The River War 13. CHURCHILL, Winston. The River War, An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan. London, 1899. Two volumes. Thick octavo, original gilt-stamped navy cloth, custom slipcase. $8000. Click for more info First edition, first printing, of Churchill’s rare second book, one of only 2000 copies printed, in original cloth. Churchill served in the 21st Lancers during Lord Kitchener’s campaign on the Upper Nile in the late 1890s and was a participant there in the last great cavalry charge of the British Army. “Hopping on a ferry, and not bothering to trouble his commanding officer in distant South India for leave, Winston turned up in the Abbasya barracks in Cairo on August 2, 1898, and joined the 21st’s A Squadron. He was fully outfitted, had bought a horse, and was, most important of all, equipped with a commission from the Morning Post to send dispatches at £15 a time” (Keegan, 46). “Far from accepting uncritically the superiority of British civilization, Churchill shows his appreciation for the longing for liberty among the indigenous inhabitants of the Sudan; but he finds their native regime defective in its inadequate legal and customary protection for the liberty of subjects. On the other hand, he criticizes the British army, and in particular its commander Lord Kitchener, for departing in its campaign from the kind of civilized respect for the liberty and humanity of adversaries that alone could justify British civilization and imperial rule over the Sudan” (Langworth, 27). This account includes 34 maps, 20 of which are printed in color and folding, and 58 illustrations, including tissue-guarded frontispieces, photogravure portraits, and numerous in-text illustrations. First printing, second state, with the final quotation mark after the words LONDON GAZETTE on page 459 of Volume II. With publisher’s 32-page catalogue at rear of Volume I, dated 10/99; “in most copies which contain a catalogue, it will be dated 11/99” (Gilbert). Without original dust jackets, so rare as to be unobtainable. Cohen A2.1.b. Woods A2(a). Langworth, 27-30. Volume I without front flyleaf (blank), interiors with several expert paper repairs to dog-eared corners (none with loss), text blocks and inner hinges expertly repaired, spines gently toned, cloth clean. An extremely good copy. “When an army in the field becomes imbued with the idea that the enemy are vermin who cumber the earth, instances of barbarity may easily be the outcome.” February 2022 – 15 – Bauman Rare Books

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