THE MIDDLE PARTS OF FORTUNE Somme & Ancre, 1916

2 volumes. LIMITED First Edition issued to subscribers by Peter Davies, Ltd. and one of only 520 hand-numbered copies. Title pages printed in red and black. 8vo, publisher's original brown polished buckram, the spines lettered in gilt within a gilt frame, dated at the bottom of the spine panels in gilt, marbled endleaves. [viii], 226; [iv], 227-453 pp. A fine set internally, fresh and clean and very well preserved, the original cloth in very good condition with just a touch of age mellowing and a few spots.

Edizione: the limited first and only unexpurgated edition, the trade edition having "certain prunings and excisions" and published under the title "her privates we". both editions were published anonymously, but it is frank manning's masterpiece. the book is an account in the vernacular of the lives of ordinary soldiers of the great war, and it is considered one of the finest novels relating to that era. it has won high praise from some very illustrious sources. ernest hemingway called it "the finest and noblest book of men in war that i have ever read. i read it once each year to remember how things really were so that i will never lie to myself nor to anyone else about them." t. e. lawrence said of it simply that "no praise could be too sheer for this book."<br> based on the author's personal experiences in the king's shropshire light infantry. he was a private with the service number 19022 and it was to "private 19022" that authorship was originally credited. manning name was only attached to it posthumously, shortly after his death in 1943.