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A THIRD SELECTION FROM THE DAVID PRITCHARD COLLECTION
“ON ACTIVE SERVICE”
MR JOHN LANE’S “ON ACTIVE SERVICE” SERIES WAS ONE OF THE EARLIEST ATTEMPTS BY A PUBLISHER TO PRESENT A WELL-ROUNDED, VERACITOUS & GENUINE RANGE OF WORKS COVERING THE EXPERIENCES OF SOLDIERS, SAILORS & AIRMEN – MALE & FEMALE – IN THE VARIOUS SERVICES & ON ALL THE MAIN FRONTS. IT REMAINS ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS & ALL THE WORLS IN THE SERIES HAVE CONSIDERABLE HISTORICAL VALUE. IT SEEMS CURIOUS THAT ALTHOUGH PUBLISHED AT AN ACCESSIBLE PRICE (BETWEEN 1919 & 1922) MANY OF THE VOLUMES ARE EXCEEDINGLY HARD TO OBTAIN. IT IS THOUGHT THAT AROUND TWENTY-EIGHT WORKS APPEARED IN ALL, & TESTIMONY TO THEIR SCARCITY IS BORNE OUT BY THE FACT THAT DAVID PRITCHARD ONLY TO HAVE ASSEMBLED AROUND TWO-THIRDS OF THEM. THEY WERE ISSUED IN DUSTJACKETS, BUT THESE SEEM PARTICULARY RARE. BELOW I PRESENT DAVID’S ASSEMBLAGE, HOPING THAT MY CUSTOMERS WILL APPRECIATE THEM & THE VALUE OF THEIR CONTENT.
Almost all our books, including the ones in this catalogue, are illustrated on our website:
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With the Chinks.
 Largely the raising & organisation of the Corps & its travels to the Front, including its two-month training period in Canada, rather than its activities in France, but a valuable record & appears to be one of the scarcest works in the series. Orig. brown cloth, blindstamped & black, VG indeed. See illustration on our website. 1919 £345
At Ypres with Best-Dunkley.
 Subaltern, 2/5th Lancs. Fus. in the Ypres Salient in 1917; Floyd recounts the climactic period leading up to the first day of Third Ypres & the attack itself is described in great detail from numerous sources. Apart from the author, the central character is his almost unbelievably unpopular 27-year-old fire-eating CO destined to win the VC, being mortally wounded so doing, on 31st July 1917. Orig. brown cloth, near fine & rare. See illustration on our website. 1920 £225
Silhouettes of Mars.
 Author served with Royal Canadian Regiment & Royal Highlanders of Canada. A collection of illuminating & entertaining vignettes of active service life in France & Flanders "written in many quite different places - trench & hospital, camp & barracks, mess-room & billet" covering an interesting range of subjects. Orig. cloth, blindstamped & titled in dark red, fine & rare volume in the series, especially so in chipped but VG dw. Volumes in the series are most elusive in their jackets. See illustrations on our website. 1920 £250
The Bagging of Baghdad.
 Worcesters officer in Mesopotamia ("A country whose once abundant glories had disappeared some 3000 years beforehand... as totally devoid of attraction as anything you could name in the universe... a repulsive place, it was not worth fighting for"). Operations to relieve Kut & capture Baghdad: "one man precariously fighting a battle with somebody else's brains, instead of that somebody else, tabbed & immaculate, safely fighting it with a million brains; all of them stereotyped, barren, mechanical, obedient - & more than anything, pathetic." So we can see where the author is coming from. There are, however, "Happier moments [in which] I have forgotten about fighting altogether." Orig. brown cloth, blindstamped & titled in black, VG in indeed in rather chipped & worn but rare dw, with author inscription: "To my friend Bill Williams With very best wishes from Ernest Betts. 3rd May 1921." Volumes in the series are most elusive in their jackets. See illustration on our website. 1920 £245
Three Chevrons.
 Letters of a regular officer, 2nd Sussex, Western Front 1914-16 & 1917 as Bde. MG Officer, commander of an MG Coy., an infantry bn. & on the staff. The 'chevrons' of the title refer to the service chevrons worn on the right sleeve for each year of overseas service, blue for 1914-15 & red for each subsequent year. Orig. dec. cloth, blindstamped & titled in red & blue, near fine in heavily but nicely restored dw. Scarce volume in the 'On Active Service' series & works in the series are most elusive in their jackets. See illustration on our website. 1919 £225
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The Land-Locked Lake.
 Fine classic Western Front memoir of regular Berkshires officer 1914-18, 1st Bn. 1914-16, command of 2nd Bn. in 1916 &c., much decorated, twice wounded & gassed at Passchendaele. Orig. blue cloth, gilt, very nice copy in sl. chipped but VG & rare dw. See illustration on our website. 1932 £350
Salute of Guns.
 Eloquent & scarce memoirs of war commissioned RFA officer in France May 1915-Oct. 1918 (with one six-month break); much on the Somme, 3rd Ypres & March Retreat. The late Bob Wyatt included the work in his revised edition of Falls (Greenhill, 1989): "...describes attitudes of Indian Army Regulars to the newly joined schoolboys; the Somme, Hill 60, Arras & the Spring Retreat are all covered with the sort of skill one usually expects only from writers wuch as Sassoon & Blunden. The story is told here of the deserters who lived in High Wood who came out at night to search for food amongst the corpses & when the Gunners went out to capture them seven or eight surrendered & the rest were bombed in their dug-out..." Orig. orange cloth, gilt, VG in chipped but very neatly restored & rare dw. See illustration on our website. 1930 £225
With the Incomparable 29th.
 Author served with 5th Royal Scots in 29th Div., landing at V Beach, battles for Fir Tree Wood & Krithia &c. until evacuated, being 'all in' after 42 days under fire. Orig. rust cloth, VG in attractive dw & rare thus. See illustration on our website. 1919 £245
Snow Trenches.
 Rare personal account of an officer with the American Expeditionary Force in North Russia during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Founded on personal experience but written in novelised form which the writer of the Introduction, Robert J. Casey (in his won right an acclaimed correspondent & war hero) describes as " a masterpiece of war fiction." Dan Steele served with the 339th Infantry at Archangel &c, until released in July 1919: this copy inscribed by him: "To my friend Tom Mullen in appreciation of many kindnesses Dan Steele... 9/22/31." Very nice copy retaining orig. & rare wraparound actetate dw. See illustration on our website. 1931 £325
The Fighting Men.
 Alden Brooks was an American writer & correspondent who was in France when war broke out: he served as a volunteer ambulance driver & then as an officer with a Heavy Artillery regiment of the French Army during the last year of the war on the Western Front inc. the Battles of Chemin des Dames, Chateau Thierry, the Marne & Meuse Argonne. This book is a compilation of six fictional descriptions of fighters of different nations: Belgium, France, Germany, England, USA & Bessarabia. Orig. blue cloth, gilt, near fine in sl. chipped o/w VG dw, from the library of the Watab Pulp & Paper Co., Sartell, Minnesota, with their label & minor stamps (cloth unmarked) & never lent out hence condition. Entertaining & rare, especially in the attractive dw. See illustration on our website. 1917 £125
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