The River War An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan

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First edition, first issue, two volumes in the original publishers gilt pictorial blue cloth. Spines, gilt tooling & titles, edges lightly bumped. Internally: Vol 1, half title, frontis, [7], (viii-xxii), [2], [1], 2-462 pp, 33 illustrations, 18 maps & plans (some folding), bound without the advert catalogue. Vol 2, half title, frontis, [5], (vi-x), [3], [1], 2-499 pp, 25 illustrations, 16 maps & plans. Some pages uncut, light spotting to endpages, evidence of removed bookplates to fpds. un-restored. With coloured maps and illustrations, not present in the abridged versions issued later, and regarded by many critics as one of the finest books Churchill ever wrote. (229*153 mm). (Cohen. Woods). The River War is a detailed account of the re-conquest of the Soudan from 1896-1898 by a mixed contingent of British and Egyptian troops under the command of Major-General Sir Herbert Kitchener. In writing the River War, Churchill records that he affected a combination of the styles of Macaulay and Gibbon" and later wrote that "nothing like the battle of Omdurman will ever be seen again. It was the last link in the long chain of those spectacular conflicts whose vivid and majestic splendour has done so much to invest war with glamour". "