The Desert Column. Leaves from the Diary of an Australian Trooper in Gallipoli, Sinai, and Palestine
Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1941 (11th edition)/ 15 April 1932.
Octavo, x (last blank), 388, [2] (blank, colophon) pages plus 3 maps on the endpapers. Pages [381]-388 contain a glossary.
Grey cloth lettered in black on the spine and front cover; endpapers unevenly tanned; textblock lightly tanned around the edges and margins; a near-fine copy in the near-fine dustwrapper (a truly stunning example).
The title page is inscribed and signed by the author ('To Mary Scott. An old cobber of mine. Ion L. Idriess. April 1942'). Idriess introduces this account of his service with the 5th Light Horse Regiment with these words: it 'is more than my diary. It is myself'. The foreword is by General Sir Harry Chauvel, 'Late Commanding the Desert Mounted Corps'. Feain and Aroney record two editions in 1941 (without numbering them); however, they fail to note that early editions did not contain the glossary, or that some editions from 1951 contain plates and the nominal roll of the 5th Light Horse Regiment. Loosely inserted in this copy is a tape-bound extract from a copy of the larger-format 1951 edition; it comprises some preliminary leaves, all the plates, and the complete nominal roll. See Dornbusch 395; Fielding and O'Neill, page 248; Trigellis-Smith 275.
Item #144764
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