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2 vols. Spines slightly darkened, endpapers faintly spotted. Biographical notices, with photographic portraits, of alumni of Balliol College, Oxford, who died in the First World War. For years after it, recalled Harold Macmillan (Balliol, 1912-14: commissioned a second lieutenant in the King's Royal Rifle Corps, November 1914), he dared not set foot in Oxford - it was a city of ghosts, so many of his contemporaries having been killed in battle; of his cohort of 28, only he and one other survived. "All the notices have been written by members of the College, except those of Basil Blackwood, Raymond Asquith and Auberon Herbert; which were written by their friend Mr. John Buchan. Capt. A.F. Lascelles has also given great assistance in writing the lives of Edward Horner and Julian Grenfell." Among the fallen, Alfred Cecil Gathorne-Hardy (1881-1915): "Tortoise, as he was called at Balliol, because he was seen about the Quad as much as the College pet, was a great stalker. He had many successful expeditions to Norway and Canada with his brother Geoffrey. He went twice to the Pyrenees to shoot chamois with his brother and 'Bill' Farrer, and his last trip was to Newfoundland to shoot caribou with his friend Hesketh Prichard. He was a born woodsman and an excellent shot, and he brought back many fine heads . . . After leaving Oxford he was called to the Bar, but he soon accepted a post at Debenham's, and later was associated with the management of the Savoy and other hotels . . . When war broke out he set to work at once to get a commission, and was gazetted to the 9th Scottish Rifles in September 1914 . . . He was quickly marked out for promotion and was in command of a company at the Battle of Loos (September 25, 1915). Before his battalion attacked he walked up and down the parapet encouraging his men; he led them carrying a cane in his hand, and was shot through the heart within ten yards of the German wire. His body was never found.". Seller Inventory # 30M100025
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