Great War Dust Jackets

The Gambardier by (Frederick Lushington) Benn 1930.  Edward Thomas’ battery commander. Jacket by R. Hartman

Gun Fodder by J F Snook Allen & Unwin 1930. Sgt. in Essex Reg. DCM. Served at Ypres, Loos & Somme.

A Socialist at War. From a machine shop in small town America to Chateau Thierry in France. 1st Pub. in 1919, the copy on the left is a Hutchinson Popular Library ed. from 1921 & the central one seems to be self-published from 1933 (from Fons). It appears to have been very popular in Germany hence the Berlin ed. of 1924 on the right. The jacket below is from Sinclair’s ‘Lanny Budd’ series about the intrigues of big business & the machinations of the Peace Conference. Viking 1940’

Simpkin, Marshall June 1918

Watt 1918. Jacket by C. W. Gage. A novel of German arrogance ‘kultur’ & conceit. (from Babylon Revisited)

Hamilton 1933. The last year of the war flying Fokker D VII’s with Jagdstaffel 34 & 35.

Harper 1918. A young man at the Front following on from Richard Davis’ ‘The Deserter’

Stokes 1930. US ed. Of the novel

Philip Allan 1931. A nurse at the front, illustrated by the author. Below. Minton Balch NY 1931 (from JRF)

(See illustrations from this book)

A Captain Departed by A W Smith Peter Davies 1934 & Yale 1935 (Jacket by Paul Laune). Little known memoir by Capt. later Major A. W. Smith from his enlistment, through the Western Front at Ypres, to post-war in India.

Putnam 1940. The concluding part of the Nobel Prizewinner’s great novel which covers the Great War & the Russian Civil War which followed. The WW1 parts are mostly in the previous vol. ‘And Quiet Flows the Don’ Putnam 1934.

Below the Watchtowers by Margaret Skelton Leonard Parsons 1926. Anti-war novel about a group of English & German students who are separated by the War. Jacket sadly unsigned.

Houghton Mifflin 1917. An American ambulance driver at the front (from Dave Golemon)

Mitre Press 1930. Impressions and Reminiscences of a young officer with the 1st Leinster’s around the Med.

‘Bird Up!’ By ‘Spotter’ Alexander Ouseley 1930. Novel. Absorbing incidents in the trail of the anti-aircraft forces.

(from Nick Fletcher)

Contact by Elliott White Springs Sears 1930 in a G & D jacket (from Dave Golemon)

Those were the Days by Osbert Sitwell Macmillan 1938 Jacket by John Farleigh. Novel set in London before, during & after the War.

John Hamilton May 1934 4th pr. Jacket by W. E. Johns (from Andrew Harrison)

Doran 1926 (from Fons) Novel set in an English seaside town on the eve of War

Odhams 1922 (by Aubrey Smith) One of the great classics of life in the ranks. He served with the London Rifle Brigade (1/5 Bt. London Reg.) from 1915 onwards winning the MM & Bar.

Heinemann 1928. Biography of the Maj. Gen. based on his diaries & private papers (from Tom Donovan)

Int. Fict. Lib. 1929. A Cambridge man, wrongfully accused of murder, escapes from prison to find redemption at the front.

Blackwood 1916 (by Major H A Stewart). The diary of a supply officer with the Army Service Corps. Cyril Falls liked the photos! The rare jacket mimics the cloth beneath.

Privately Printed 1919 in an edition of 200 copies. Only in wrappers but I didn’t want this important book to be lost elsewhere. ‘Bumble Bee’ has identified himself as the Wine expert Andre Simon in the above inscription. Although clearly involved in front line action most of his descriptions are  of his rest billets! With the 50th Northumbrian Division.

Dent Wayfarers Library 1916. A novel about a lady doctor who joins the RAMC disguised as a man!

Scribner 1918 with Silhouettes by Jessie Gillespie. The author worked with the YMCA as part of the AEF (from Fons).

Dutton 1917. True story of an Irish terrier, a kind-hearted Tommy & a heartless Hun (from Fons).

Harcourt, Brace 1925. A young mid-westerner uses his family’s conflicting religious beliefs to come to terms with the War (from Babylon Revisited)

Little, Brown 1922. Jacket by Marshall Frantz. A disfigured Canadian veteran falls in love with a temporarily blinded girl after returning from the War to find his wife re-married. (from Babylon Revisited).

Medici 1931. History of the 19 Battalions of the Regiment on the Western Front & Gallipoli. Largely compiled by Everard Wyrall.

Morgan & Scott (1919). Novel of the training & front line service of a village lad & the family he left behind. Spender was the father of the poet, Stephen Spender.

Mills & Boon 1923. The author was invalided out of the Royal Naval Reserve with osteoarthritis.

Jenkins 1928 (fp 1925) Captain of the Australian submarine AE2 at the Dardanelles & his subsequent capture (from David & Helen Pritchard)

Moore-Langen 1929. Front line diary from 1917-18 with the 67th Bde., 42nd Div. (from JRF)

Cecil Palmer 1932 An excellent long forgotten novel dealing with pre-war training & the early days of the War.

Harrap 1917 A representative selection of accounts by women involved in all aspects of War Work from Munitions & Nursing to Banking & Transport.

Returned Soldiers Ass. of NSW 1917. Edition de Luxe of 200 copies. Issued each year from 1916-1920 to commemorate the Gallipoli landings containing poems, stories & photos.

I can think of no other example of a jacket covering a leather binding! (from Nick Fletcher).

Cambridge 1931. 6th ed. (from Fons)

Collins 1921 (by Karl Spindler). An account by the German officer who ran guns to Ireland during the 1916 Easter Rebellion.

(from David & Helen Pritchard)

Appleton 1926. A collection of 12 War stories trans. from the Italian. (from David & Helen Pritchard)

John Winston 1930. The story of the Kentucky boy who single-handedly captured a German Machine Gun Battalion.

McClurg 1931. A novel set on the Eastern Front described at the time as the ‘All Quiet’ of that campaign. Pictorial cloth seen through its Glassine wrapper.

Hutchinson 1940. Times correspondent with the North Russian Expeditionary Force in 1919 (from Tom Donovan).

Simpkin, Marshall 1916. Early days in a field hospital in Serbia (from George Jeffery Books).

Augsberg Pub. 1919. Letters from the Front in 1918 by a Capt. & Chaplain with the 127th Inf., AEF.

Simon & Schuster 1933 (from Between the Covers).

Fisher Unwin 1916. Poems (from John Etheridge).

Cape 1939. Western Front, Spring 1917. Spears was liaison officer to the French Army.

Penn 1924. Romance. A Pennsylvanian student goes to War. The author provided illustrations for some of Hemingway’s novels. (from Babylon Revisited).

Duckworth 1939. ‘Brave, sunny verses of the Great War’ said the Times.

Ace Publishing 1938. Jacket by Howard Leigh. Novel. A Wartime feud resurfaces twenty years later in South America. The first 60 pages are set in WW1.

Putnam 1918. How the US army was trained for Trench fighting.

(from Babylon Revisited)

Hodder 1918. Tales of an Observation squadron over the Western Front.

Houghton Mifflin 1916 by (Henry Beston). An American ambulance driver at Verdun (from Peter Harrington)

Herbert Jenkins 1920 & 1919 (from a b&w image). 2nd Lt. Sleath served with the 2nd Royal Scots as sniping officer but was invalided home to work in the War office after a freak accident with a trench board. He wrote 4 other non-war thrillers.

Rich & Cowan 1934 An excellent account of German & British airships during & after the War. (from White Eagle Books).

Jarrolds 1934. In the Austro-Hungarian secret service & in Russian captivity.

Cassell 1916. 9 short nautical stories.

Watt 1917. Jacket by by G.W.Gage. Germany at the time of the US entry into the War.

Stokes 1918. Jacket by Richard Dorgan. Humorous tales of the US Naval Reserve.

Sears 1930. A Romance of the Air.

Cambridge 1916.

Murray 1920. Early work on War-time camouflage (from Dave Goloman).

Britton Publishing 1918. Memoirs of a nurse with the US navy during the War (from Yesterday’s Bookshop).

A. & C. Black 1920. Colour sketches from the Front.

(from Lavender Fields Books).

above Century Co 1917

alongside Melrose 1919. A spirited account of the actions of a German U-Boat.

Bodley Head 1929 Artillery officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army who was captured & imprisoned in Siberia. He escaped & made his way to the Pacific Coast.

Lovat Dickson 1935. Jacket by Peingnum.Novel. The Revolution comes to a Russian Cruiser. Soboleff was an ex-Naval Lieutenant.

Talbot Press 1932. Memoir of a War-time Padre (from Seamus Taaffe)

Hutchinson 1932. 2nd imp. The story of a German spy in the English censor’s office.

Kribe-Verlag Berlin 1931 Enlarged edition of ‘Gun-Running). Unapologetic account.

by Col. H.Stewart. Whitcombe & Tombs 1921. A substantial tome.

Ivor, Nicholson & Watson 1937. ‘The most brilliant Englishman in the Nr. East’ according to T. E. Lawrence.