BLASTING AND BOMBARDIERING

London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1937. First Edition and First State of the binding. With illustrations, including a self-portrait frontispiece and 11 other portraits from the author's drawings, six portraits from photographs on four glossy plates and four paintings by the author reproduced in black and white on glossy plates. Tall 8vo, publisher's original salmon cloth, the spine lettered in black, in the original dustjacket printed in black and yellow. [iv], 312 pp. A near fine copy, the text-block quite clean throughout with only rare evidence of the usual foxing, the cloth just a touch mellowed at the edges, the jacket is complete without chipping or loss and is only a bit age mellowed, the spine panel tips skillfully strengthened from the rear. A circa 1970s reader has neatly signed his name on the rear paste-down in blue ink and has make some reviews on the rear fly in pencil and a few marginal marks in pencil. FIRST EDITION OF THE AUTHOR'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY FOR THE YEARS BETWEEN 1914 AND 1926. It is in this work that Lewis, a painter, author, novelist, and satirist, first identified the critically oft-mentioned "Men of 1914" group comprised of himself, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and James Joyce. Lewis writes about his time in the army in a style of ironic detachment. Roughly one third of the book recounts the months leading up to the war, and the last third is partly about his literary friendships in the years after the war. The middle third of this book is where he recounts most of his experiences as an artillery officer in the British army. His account of what it feels like to be shelled— and gunners certainly knew what it was to be a well-ranged target—is unrivaled. His descriptions of life as a bombardier-instructor on 6-inch howitzers is equally interesting.
Included is a review of the book by V.S. Pritchett in which he wrote that even the "few chapters on the war in France are masterly, for they are the work of a collected mind and one that knows what its attitude to experience is and will continue to be.