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The Wooden Horse
by Williams, Eric
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Good, 1st edition (5th impression March 1949; 1st in Feb 1949), missing d/j. Brown boards, pressed spine titling (faded); text b
- Seller
-
Maidenhead, Berkshire, United Kingdom
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
London: Collins, 1949. 1st (5th imp). h/b. Good, 1st edition (5th impression March 1949; 1st in Feb 1949), missing d/j. Brown boards, pressed spine titling (faded); text block intact and bound but a little loose; pages crisp and unmarked. Donor's neat inscription ffep (April 1949).. 8vo: crown (200 x 140 / 8"" x 5_""). It is over fifty years since the critics of the day acclaimed The Wooden Horse as a superbly told story of the most ingenious and daring escape of the Second World War. Millions of readers agreed, and the book became a modern classic. This revised and expanded edition tells the tale. The escape itself was conceived on classical lines. The Greeks built a wooden horse and by means of it got into the city of Troy; in 1943 two British officers built a wooden horse and by means of it got out of a German prison camp. Together with a third companion, they were the only British prisoners ever to escape and reach England from this camp, though many tried. It was Stalag Luft III, designed especially to hold the Germans' most prized captives Ð Allied aircrew Ð and considered to be escape-proof. The break from the camp itself is only part of the story. Once outside the wire the escapers were still faced with the problem of getting out of Germany. Fugitives in the midst of a watchful enemy population, they had many close shaves when disaster threatened to overwhelm them Ð adventures which the reader shares to the full. The fantastic nature of this enterprise, the patience, determination and endurance, above all the steel nerve it demanded from an undernourished physique, are rendered the more impressive by the manner of the telling. The characters are so surely drawn that they could not but be real. Throughout the book runs a vein of humour which alone made those days bearable. The warmth of human companionship born of privation, fear and a common purpose is vividly portrayed.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Inklings & Yarnspinners
(GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- IYC133353
- Title
- The Wooden Horse
- Author
- Williams, Eric
- Format/Binding
- H/b
- Book Condition
- Used - Good, 1st edition (5th impression March 1949; 1st in Feb 1949), missing d/j. Brown boards, pressed spine titling (faded); text b
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- 1st (5th imp)
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Publisher
- Collins
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 1949
- Pages
- 256
- Size
- 8vo: crown (200 x 140 / 8"" x 5_
- Weight
- 0.00 lbs
- Keywords
- 1st, memoir, second world war, Williams, Germany, escape, autobiography
- Bookseller catalogs
- 2nd-hand books;
Terms of Sale
Inklings & Yarnspinners
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Inklings & Yarnspinners
Biblio member since 2021
Maidenhead, Berkshire
About Inklings & Yarnspinners
INKLINGS & YARNSPINNERSA new online bookshop forFIRST & SIGNED EDITIONS, RARE BOOKSA particular focus on:- The Oxford Inklings with their Friends & Influences (C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Barfield, Williams, Chesterton, Macdonald, Sayers, etc)- Great 20th Century Novelists (e.g. Graham Greene & John le Carré; Anthony Powell & Evelyn Waugh; P. D. James etc)- Great 20th Century Poets (e.g. T. S. Eliot, John Masefield, Walter de la Mare, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Stevie Smith, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Dylan Thomas, etc)- Christian Theology (e.g. from library sales)
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Crisp
- A term often used to indicate a book's new-like condition. Indicates that the hinges are not loosened. A book described as crisp...
- FFEP
- A common abbreviation for Front Free End Paper. Generally, it is the first page of a book and is part of a single sheet that...
- Text Block
- Most simply the inside pages of a book. More precisely, the block of paper formed by the cut and stacked pages of a book....
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....