[Rarebooks] fa: [MILITARIA] ESSAY ON THE ART OF WAR 1761 - Count Turpin - INFLUENCE ON GEORGE WASHINGTON

[ArCh]

Auction ends Sunday, November 5. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/mpfur25k

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Lancelot-Theodore, comte de Turpin de Crissé; Joseph Otway (trans.): An Essay on the Art of War. Translated from the French of Count Turpin, by Captain Joseph Otway. In two volumes. Volume II. London: Printed by A. Hamilton, for W. Johnston, in Ludgate-Street, MDCCLXI [1761]. Volume two only. First edition in English; 4to (29 cm), in full period/early speckled calf, gilt-tooled spine and spine label; [4], 138 pp., plus 21 engraved folding maps and plans with accompanying text leaves, and an 8-page index. ESTC T101571.

Binding with some bumping and wear to the extremities, a few scuff marks, lacking volume label on the spine; contents with occasional mild browning and offsetting, scattered light spotting, a few maps with short closed tears at the edges of the folds, else very clean and sound, firmly bound. The last map is numbered XXV (25), but the work is apparently complete with only 21 plates, because the plate numbers in this copy skip from Plate XVIII (18) to Plate XXIII (23) and every other copy we've found (ECCO, Internet Archive, Heritage Auctions) has the same gap in the numbering.

An important and uncommon work, very influential in its day, particularly among American officers during the Revolutionary War. George Washington is known to have owned a copy, and in a November, 1775 letter to Col. William Woodford, he wrote: "As to the manual exercise, the evolutions and manoeuvres of a regiment, with other knowledge necessary to the soldier, you will acquire them from those authors who have treated upon these subjects, among whom Bland stands foremost; also an Essay on the Art of War; Instructions for Officers, lately published at Philadelphia; the Partisan; Young; and others."