Australia in Palestine

Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1919. xv. 153pp. frontis. portrait of Gen. Sir Edmund H. Allenby. illus. hardback sm 4to in illustrated paper covered boards: Good [some wear @ spine ends; bottom corners are bumped; antique bookplate on pastedown; else a nice clean complete and tight copy; illustrations and text are in very good or better condition] A wonderful piece of World War One memorabilia that includes 20 handsome color plates and many other photographs and drawings; the editors note that this is a "Soldiers' Book, produced almost entirely by soldiers in the field under active service conditions to send to their friends in Australia and abroad." This particular copy was sent to a lady in Edinburgh by a soldier. The editors were Sir Henry Somer Gullett (1878-1940), who accompanied Australian forces to the Near East as a captain and official military historian. He became director of the Australian War Museum and later a government cabinet minister who died spectacularly in the so-called Canberra air disaster of 1940. Prolific writer and journalist Charles Leslie Barrett (1879-1959) went to Egypt with Australian forces where he edited a couple of military publications.