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Death in the Making -
Robert Capa, Gerda Taro
1938 - Covici Friede, New York - First Edition
'If the photo isn't good enough, it's because you're not close enough.' – Robert Capa
A stunning copy of Robert Capa’s first published monograph – a landmark of 20th century war photography – in the rare dust jacket depicting a Loyalist soldier falling to his death, gun in hand, after being shot – a now iconic image of the Spanish Civil War Featuring 145 photographs by Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, captions by Robert Capa, translated and with a preface by Jay Allen, and arranged by André Kertesz. Housed in a custom clamshell case of fine black morocco leather over matching cloth, velvet lined, and lettered in gilt to the spine.
From 1936 onwards, Capa's coverage of the Spanish Civil War appeared regularly. His picture of a Loyalist soldier who had just been fatally wounded earned him his international reputation and became a powerful symbol of war. After his companion, Gerda Taro, was killed in Spain, Capa travelled to China in 1938 and emigrated to New York a year later. As a correspondent in Europe, he photographed the Second World War, covering the landing of American troops on Omaha beach on D-Day, the liberation of Paris and the Battle of the Bulge
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Price HK$ 60,000
1938 - Covici Friede, New York - First Edition
'If the photo isn't good enough, it's because you're not close enough.' – Robert CapaA stunning copy of Robert Capa’s first published monograph – a landmark of 20th century war photography – in the rare dust jacket depicting a Loyalist soldier falling to his death, gun in hand, after being shot – a now iconic image of the Spanish Civil War Featuring 145 photographs by Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, captions by Robert Capa, translated and with a preface by Jay Allen, and arranged by André Kertesz. Housed in a custom clamshell case of fine black morocco leather over matching cloth, velvet lined, and lettered in gilt to the spine.
From 1936 onwards, Capa's coverage of the Spanish Civil War appeared regularly. His picture of a Loyalist soldier who had just been fatally wounded earned him his international reputation and became a powerful symbol of war. After his companion, Gerda Taro, was killed in Spain, Capa travelled to China in 1938 and emigrated to New York a year later. As a correspondent in Europe, he photographed the Second World War, covering the landing of American troops on Omaha beach on D-Day, the liberation of Paris and the Battle of the Bulge
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Price HK$ 60,000
Ian Hamilton's March -
Sir Winston Spencer Churchill
1900 - Longmans, London - First Edition
An attractively bound first edition of Churchill’s continued adventures during the Boer War. Illustrated with portrait, nine maps and plans, and large folding colour map to the rear.
Churchill, having resigned his commission in the British Army, was nonetheless drawn to the Second Boer War, and arranged to be sent to Africa as a correspondent for The Morning Post. This book charts Lieutenant-General Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton's campaign progress from Bloemfontein to Pretoria, during which time he fought numerous sizeable conflicts with Boer forces.
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Price HK$ 5,500
1900 - Longmans, London - First Edition
An attractively bound first edition of Churchill’s continued adventures during the Boer War. Illustrated with portrait, nine maps and plans, and large folding colour map to the rear.Churchill, having resigned his commission in the British Army, was nonetheless drawn to the Second Boer War, and arranged to be sent to Africa as a correspondent for The Morning Post. This book charts Lieutenant-General Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton's campaign progress from Bloemfontein to Pretoria, during which time he fought numerous sizeable conflicts with Boer forces.
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Price HK$ 5,500
The London Cyclist Battalion -
A. S. Clark [Editor]
1932 - Published for The 25th London (Cyclist) Old Comrades' Association by Forster Groom & Co., London - First Edition
The thirty-three years from 1887 to 1920 witnessed the conception, birth, growth, adolescence, and premature death of military cycling (as distinct from mere despatch riding) in the British Army. This scarce work provides a history of military bicycling in the British Army, chronicling the events of the 26th corp., and it’s successor the 25th battalion, including their campaigns in Waziristan, India in 1917, the third Afghan War of 1919, the Amiritsar uprising in 1919, and in Mesopotamia.
Illustrated throughout with photographic plates.
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Price HK$ 2,500
1932 - Published for The 25th London (Cyclist) Old Comrades' Association by Forster Groom & Co., London - First Edition
The thirty-three years from 1887 to 1920 witnessed the conception, birth, growth, adolescence, and premature death of military cycling (as distinct from mere despatch riding) in the British Army. This scarce work provides a history of military bicycling in the British Army, chronicling the events of the 26th corp., and it’s successor the 25th battalion, including their campaigns in Waziristan, India in 1917, the third Afghan War of 1919, the Amiritsar uprising in 1919, and in Mesopotamia.Illustrated throughout with photographic plates.
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Price HK$ 2,500
The Military Operations at Cabul -
Lieut. Vincent Eyre
1843 - John Murray, London - Fifth Edition
A substantial part of Eyre’s narratives where written whilst actually imprisoned by the Afghans. Eyre, seriously wounded, and his family were captured by Akbar Khan and held for nine months until rescued by General Pollock’s forces. Some of the manuscript was smuggled out of his cell while he remained a captive and on its arrival in England it was published. At the time, Eyre’s account and that recounting similar experiences by Lady Florentia Sale were considered companion pieces that would enable the British public to understand the Afghan debacle, the disaster that had there befallen the army under Elphinstone and the resulting annihilation of the army in the Afghan passes as it struggled to retreat into India. Eyre provides a detailed and moving description of the misfortunes of the British forces and the indiscriminate slaughter of their retreating column by their enemies, as well as a unique account of the harrowing conditions and distressing treatment that were inflicted on the British hostages by their Afghan captors.
Illustrated with folding lithographed ‘ Plan of the Cantonment and Surrounding Country’ of Cabul. The edition, published the same year as the first, includes corrections and additions by Edward Eyre not found in earlier issues, including an Appendix with copies of various previously unpublished dispatches.
From the library of Colonel Reynolds (1863-1931), the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, a regiment that over time has been amalgamated into the Royal Irish Regiment, and who, despite the disastrous military campaign of 1841-2, were deployed to Afghanistan 150 years later, serving with distinction.
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Price HK$ 1,800
1843 - John Murray, London - Fifth Edition
A substantial part of Eyre’s narratives where written whilst actually imprisoned by the Afghans. Eyre, seriously wounded, and his family were captured by Akbar Khan and held for nine months until rescued by General Pollock’s forces. Some of the manuscript was smuggled out of his cell while he remained a captive and on its arrival in England it was published. At the time, Eyre’s account and that recounting similar experiences by Lady Florentia Sale were considered companion pieces that would enable the British public to understand the Afghan debacle, the disaster that had there befallen the army under Elphinstone and the resulting annihilation of the army in the Afghan passes as it struggled to retreat into India. Eyre provides a detailed and moving description of the misfortunes of the British forces and the indiscriminate slaughter of their retreating column by their enemies, as well as a unique account of the harrowing conditions and distressing treatment that were inflicted on the British hostages by their Afghan captors.Illustrated with folding lithographed ‘ Plan of the Cantonment and Surrounding Country’ of Cabul. The edition, published the same year as the first, includes corrections and additions by Edward Eyre not found in earlier issues, including an Appendix with copies of various previously unpublished dispatches.
From the library of Colonel Reynolds (1863-1931), the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, a regiment that over time has been amalgamated into the Royal Irish Regiment, and who, despite the disastrous military campaign of 1841-2, were deployed to Afghanistan 150 years later, serving with distinction.
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Price HK$ 1,800
Flashman at the Charge - From The Flashman Papers 1854-1855 -
George MacDonald Fraser
1973 - Barrie & Jenkins, London - First Edition
The fourth packet of Flashman papers, regaling us with further episodes in the life of Harry Flashman, the caddish bully of Tom Brown's School days who was expelled in drunken disgrace from Rugby school in the late 1830's.
This instalment is set during the Battle of Balaclava. Quite amazingly, our dashing, and reluctant leader is at the head of the light brigade.....
As with his previous adventures, Flashman at the Charge is rich in those qualities which one him honour and fame in his own time and have endeared him to hosts of loyal admirer since - cowardice, treachery, lechery and an unfailing instinct for survival, coupled with his own caustic humour and unsparing honesty as a historian.
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Price HK$ 1,900
1973 - Barrie & Jenkins, London - First Edition
The fourth packet of Flashman papers, regaling us with further episodes in the life of Harry Flashman, the caddish bully of Tom Brown's School days who was expelled in drunken disgrace from Rugby school in the late 1830's. This instalment is set during the Battle of Balaclava. Quite amazingly, our dashing, and reluctant leader is at the head of the light brigade.....
As with his previous adventures, Flashman at the Charge is rich in those qualities which one him honour and fame in his own time and have endeared him to hosts of loyal admirer since - cowardice, treachery, lechery and an unfailing instinct for survival, coupled with his own caustic humour and unsparing honesty as a historian.
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Price HK$ 1,900
Architectura Navalis - bound with - Architectura Civilis, Nova & Antiqua -
Josephum Furttenbach, Georg Andreas Böckler [Boeckler]
1629 - Johan Saurn, Ulm - First Editions
A stunning, clean and complete copy of Joseph Furttenbach’s famous treaty on shipbuilding, Architectura Navalis with double-page engraved title, title in red and black, twenty stunning double-page engraved plates showing boat design, and various types of boats many engaged in action with other boats and monsters of the sea. Furttenbach was a highly influential German architect, who attempted to cover all fields of architecture in his writings. Böckler corresponded with Furttenbach and his works on architecture were intended to contribute to the rebuilding of Germany after the devastation of the Thirty Years War, his Architectura Civilis, Nova & Antiqua presents a comparative treatment of the Orders [Architectural Styles] and is illustrated with forty engraved plates, woodcut printer’s device and red and black text to title page, woodcut head pieces, and initials.
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Price HK$ 95,000
1629 - Johan Saurn, Ulm - First Editions
A stunning, clean and complete copy of Joseph Furttenbach’s famous treaty on shipbuilding, Architectura Navalis with double-page engraved title, title in red and black, twenty stunning double-page engraved plates showing boat design, and various types of boats many engaged in action with other boats and monsters of the sea. Furttenbach was a highly influential German architect, who attempted to cover all fields of architecture in his writings. Böckler corresponded with Furttenbach and his works on architecture were intended to contribute to the rebuilding of Germany after the devastation of the Thirty Years War, his Architectura Civilis, Nova & Antiqua presents a comparative treatment of the Orders [Architectural Styles] and is illustrated with forty engraved plates, woodcut printer’s device and red and black text to title page, woodcut head pieces, and initials.
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Price HK$ 95,000
Narrative of the late Victorious Campaign in Affghanistan -
Lieutenant Greenwood
1844 - Henry Colburn, London - Second Edition
Scarce in both first and second edition, especially in the original cloth. Illustrated with large folding map to rear, and tinted lithographic frontispiece of the Battle of Mazeera and four lithographic plates showing the Fort of Jamrod in the valley of Peshawar, Fort Ali Musjid in the Khyber Pass, Bala Hissar at Cabul, City and valley of Cabul.
‘Here is a volume which must at once take its place beside those of Lady Sale and Lieut. Eyre, to which it forms a natural and necessary sequel... It narrates in the words and with the appliances of en eye-witness, the details, both personal and professional, of that glorious but terrible "measure of revenge," which it was the lot of General Pollock and his gallant band to inflict on the assassins of Cabool. The tale is infinitely better for being a "plain unvarnished" one... A considerable amount of amusement, as well as of utility, is added to this volume by the writer having made it the medium for his recollection of seven years' service in India, previously to the stirring events which give the chief attraction to the work. These recollections touch upon all the usual features of Anglo-Indian life, and are written in the same natural and easy vein which mark the more important portion of the narrative’ – Coburn’s New Monthly Magazine 1844.
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Price HK$ 5,000
1844 - Henry Colburn, London - Second Edition
Scarce in both first and second edition, especially in the original cloth. Illustrated with large folding map to rear, and tinted lithographic frontispiece of the Battle of Mazeera and four lithographic plates showing the Fort of Jamrod in the valley of Peshawar, Fort Ali Musjid in the Khyber Pass, Bala Hissar at Cabul, City and valley of Cabul.‘Here is a volume which must at once take its place beside those of Lady Sale and Lieut. Eyre, to which it forms a natural and necessary sequel... It narrates in the words and with the appliances of en eye-witness, the details, both personal and professional, of that glorious but terrible "measure of revenge," which it was the lot of General Pollock and his gallant band to inflict on the assassins of Cabool. The tale is infinitely better for being a "plain unvarnished" one... A considerable amount of amusement, as well as of utility, is added to this volume by the writer having made it the medium for his recollection of seven years' service in India, previously to the stirring events which give the chief attraction to the work. These recollections touch upon all the usual features of Anglo-Indian life, and are written in the same natural and easy vein which mark the more important portion of the narrative’ – Coburn’s New Monthly Magazine 1844.
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Price HK$ 5,000
A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons -
Francis Grose
1785 - Printed for S. Hooper, London - First Edition
A handsome first edition, large quarto (28x23cm) in contemporary tree calf binding, illustrated with 48 full page plates, and the 49th plate reduced in size on page 118 (as issued).
Francis Grose (1731-91), was an English antiquary draughtsman and lexicographer, who, in addition to his ‘Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons’ initiated the eighteenth-century's most extensive series of published illustrations of ancient monuments, including the eight volume ‘Antiquities of England and Wales’.
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Price HK$ 6,500
1785 - Printed for S. Hooper, London - First Edition
A handsome first edition, large quarto (28x23cm) in contemporary tree calf binding, illustrated with 48 full page plates, and the 49th plate reduced in size on page 118 (as issued).Francis Grose (1731-91), was an English antiquary draughtsman and lexicographer, who, in addition to his ‘Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons’ initiated the eighteenth-century's most extensive series of published illustrations of ancient monuments, including the eight volume ‘Antiquities of England and Wales’.
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Price HK$ 6,500