From Peter M. Huyton, Hereford, United Kingdom
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
AbeBooks Seller since 04 June 2003
About this Item
Sole edition, 1948. Book size - 8.5 x 5.5 inches, pp. frontis + xii + 354 + 1 + 30 b&w plates + 3 maps (2 fold-out) , hardback. Book condition - near Very Good ; contents clean, some foxing of the preliminaries with the very occasional spots in the textblock, occasional light soiling of pages towards the fore-edge, two ink inscriptions in the author's hand - inside the front board is a verse from Lord Dunsanay's "The Corrupter" , beginning " And were you pleased ? They asked of Helen ." ending with " I should say I was ", and at the foot are the initials 'D.N' (in a different hand) ; on the flyleaf is the inscription ' For "Helen" from Julian 8.8.52 . With a letter from the King we might have raised the tribes in time & the whole story could have ended differently. But our emissary to Zog preferred to keep an appointment with "Helen" ! ' (more on this below) - inner hinges reinforced with jaconette cloth ; red cloth with title, author and publisher in gilt on the spine ; corners a little rubbed and lightly bent, boards' edges all very good, back clean, back hinge very sound, spine complete and just a litle darkened, spine ends slightly rubbed but not split, front clean. No dustjacket . This copy would appear to be a re-bind, in that it does not have the double-headed eagle crest on the front board and the inner hinges are re-inforced in the manner of a library binding (though it is not a library copy) , but it does have the publisher's name at the foot of the spine which is unusual in a re-bound copy. Please see photos for indications of condition and contents. Before the Second World War, Amery was a war correspondent in the Spanish Civil War and later an attaché for the British Foreign Office in Belgrade. After the war began he joined the RAF as a sergeant in 1940, then was commissioned and transferred to the British Army on the General List in 1941, reaching the rank of Captain. In 1943-44 he served as Liaison Officer to the Albanian Resistance Movement and it is this episode of his career which forms the subject of his book. The author's inscription on the flyleaf and inside the front board are intriguing with their clear implication that events during the Albanian period were affected by a 'femme fatale' whose charms proved too tempting for the "emissary to [King ] Zog " . Who was 'Helen' and who was the emissary ? There is no real clue in the book itself and there doesn't appear anything online that might identify either. Information might be elicited from Amery's papers that, after his death in 1996, were deposited at Cambridge University. The mysterious "Helen" might prove difficult to identify, with the only possible clue in the book being the initials 'D.N.' at the foot of the paste-down (or they could be a red herring ). Seller Inventory # 2477
Bibliographic Details
Title: SONS OF THE EAGLE .A Study in Guerilla War [...
Publisher: Macmillan & Co Ltd London
Publication Date: 1948
Binding: Hardcover
Store Description
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