[Rarebooks] FS: Viscount Wolseley: SOLDIER'S POCKET-BOOK

[Kaaterskill Books]

We offer for Sale:

Wolseley, G. J. [Garnet Wolseley, Viscount]. THE SOLDIER'S 
POCKET-BOOK FOR FIELD SERVICE. London: Macmillan and Co., 1869. viii, 
276 pp. Illus. with b/w drawings. 24mo. Limp red morocco ruled in 
blind, gilt titles. Allibone p.2814-5. First edition.

Field Marshal Garnet Joseph Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley of Cairo, 
British army officer, who was the inspiration for Gilbert and 
Sullivan's Major-General Stanley: " the very model of a modern 
Major-General ..." in The Pirates of Penzance. He served in the 
Burmese War, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, Second Opium War, 
the Fenian raids, Red River Rebellion, China, Canada, and Africa. The 
Soldier's Pocket Book, begun at the suggestion of Sir Richard Airey, 
the army's quartermaster-general, was designed as a guide to 
practical soldiering. Wolseley wrote that 'nearly all the military 
books lately published in England are from the pens of men who have 
never seen a shot fired'. The Soldier's Pocket Book was "a veritable 
vade mecum of information on every aspect of practical campaigning. 
It was a guide designed to cover warfare, from the field operations 
of the various arms to the minutiae of life on campaigns...it was 
above all a manual for colonial warfare" (Halik Kochanski:Sir Garnet 
Wolseley: Victorian Hero). While the work gained him a reputation as 
a forward looking officer, his ideas were radical at the time and 
included a belief that the ordinary soldier should be educated -a 
breakdown in Victorian ideas of maintaining class order- the value of 
military intelligence, and the importance of appointing officers by 
ability rather than seniority. The work went through five editions. 
"... it was the only guide of its kind to military organization and 
tactics in the kind of small wars in which the army was increasingly 
involved.... The Soldier's Pocket Book demonstrated Wolseley's 
understanding of logistics and advertised his commitment to military 
reform" (DNB). An important work. Scarce. OCLC shows only one copy of 
the 1869 edition at the Het Leger Museum; there are also copies at 
Oxford, Nat. Lib Scotland, and the BL.

Spine sunned, tear to lower joints, headband chipped, extremities 
worn, small chip to preliminaries, top corner of page 1 torn free, 
bookplate of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United 
States, Commandery of the State of Illinois on front pastedown, shelf 
sticker on foot of backstrip, their stamp on title. One three leather 
clasps town, rear signature of blanks, separated, binders ticket on 
rear pastedown. Still a good copy  [31648] $500.00

Regards,

Charles Kutcher
Kaaterskill Books
P. O. Box 122
East Jewett, NY 12424
email: books at kaaterskillbooks.com
phone: 518-589-0555
www.kaaterskillbooks.com
Members ABAA/ILAB/IOBA


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