Slaves of the Samurai. An Australian Odyssey, which gives an Account of the Life and Thoughts of a Slave of the Samurai, during his Three Years and Seven Months as a POW at the Hands of the Japanese. WITH BOOKPLATE SIGNED BY ADMIRAL MIDDLETON

Oxford University Press,, [1946]. 8vo., Second Impression, with a portrait frontispiece, 30 plates, 5 full-page maps, a full-page facsimile in the text and coloured endpaper maps; cloth, a very good, clean copy in price-clipped dustwrapper, the latter lightly frayed at extremities. WITH THE PRIZE BOOKPLATE OF HM DOCKYARD SCHOOL CHATHAM SIGNED BY ADMIRAL MIDDLETON.Published two months after the first edition, this second impression is testament to the immediate success of this work which remains perhaps the outstanding literary achievement and curiosity of Australia's war against the Japanese. It contains some fifty thousand words of verse, written initially as a mental exercise, and preserved on twenty small sheets of paper (the facsimile gives an idea of the literary compression required) and smuggled from camp to camp (and country to country) under horrifying circumstances. The author, who was captured as a colonel AIF serving with 8 Australian Division was also a Rhodes Scholar and an Olympic athlete. The plates include over twenty drawings made on the spot by Major-General HJD de Fremery which were also miraculously preserved. The frontispiece is a fine portrait of the author by Murray Griffin, the official AIF war artist in Malaya.Admiral Gervase Boswell Middleton (1893-1961) made a distinguished career (not least as captain successively of HMS Revenge and HMS Ramilles). After his appointment as Rear-Admiral he served as Admiral Superintendent of HM Dockyard Chatham from 1946-50.A remarkably well-preserved copy of a fascinating and well-nigh unique work.