Arthur Bryant. Unfinished Victory, 1940

Arthur Bryant. UNFINISHED VICTORY. Macmillan, London, 1940.

Current Selling Prices
$250-$400? /£120-£200?

HISTORY / POLITICS
Highly uncommon book especially in a jacket. It appears never to have been reprinted due to accusations of anti-semitism. The dust jacket blurbs states: '...Mr. Bryant explains that however signally we defeat Germany in the field, we shall never achieve our end, which is the peace and liberty of Europe, until we have learned to understand Germany.' He says of Hitler: 'His racial theory may be repulsive gibberish, his ambitions barbarous and ridiculous, his motives cruel and sadistic, but only a man deliberately shutting his eyes to realities can deny his astonishing genius for leadership.' It is said that Bryant attempted to buy up and destroy all copies of the book, realising how untimely were his views.

Bryant was probably the leading historian in Britain in the twentieth century in the middlebrow mass market. He specialised in 'doublet and hose' history as opposed to scolarly, academic specialised work. He was mentioned recently in Socialist Review in a list of appeasers of Hitler:-

"In the build-up to the occupation of Iraq, American and British politicians and generals were trotting out quotes from Churchill and comparing the anti-war movement to those who appeased Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930s. Few bothered to point out that it was not the left who appeased Hitler but the right--including the 'Daily Mail', virtually the entire Tory Party, hack historians like Arthur Bryant, military experts like Major General JFC Fuller (Britain's leading exponent of armoured warfare), the ex Liberal prime minister Lloyd George, the Duke of Windsor (formerly King Edward VIII) and the mother of our present queen. Indeed Winston Churchill was regarded as a dangerous maverick because he recognised the danger Hitler's Germany posed to the position of Britain as a world power..."

This is the world of Ishiguro's 'The Remains of the Day' which is narrated by the butler of a Nazi-sympathising English aristocrat. I recall in the late 1980s attending a contents sale at Byant's house in Cathedral Close Salisbury. To be fair it was not crammed with Nazi tracts, I don't even recall a 'Mein Kampf', the only sign of his nationalism was a very large old Union Jack on the wall of an upstairs room. I came away with a van full of good saleable books including quite alot of books signed to him by other writers. Andrew Roberts lays into him in 'Patriotism: The Last Refuge of Sir Arthur Bryant' -

On 19th February 1979 London's literary, political and historical world came together in the Vintners Hall for a dinner to pay tribute to Sir Arthur Bryant CH, CBE, LLD, FRHist.S, FRSL on his eightieth birthday. The author of over forty books, a columnist on the Illustrated London News for more than four decades, and knighted by Churchill, Bryant sat between Harold Macmillan and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Other guests included the then prime minister, James Callaghan, a brace of field marshals, the chairman of Times Newspapers, half a dozen knights and over two dozen peers and peeresses. It was, as one of those present put it, 'Bryant's apotheosis as the Grand Old Man of British historical writing'.
Yet those distinguished guests in the Vintners Hall could not have known what the expiry of the Fifty Year Rule and the subsequent opening of Bryant' s private papers can now tell us; that far from being the patriot he so long and loudly proclaimed himself, Bryant was in fact a Nazi sympathiser and fascist fellow-traveller, who only narrowly escaped internment as a potential traitor in 1940. He was also, incidentally, a supreme toady, fraudulent scholar and humbug." (Tell us what you really feel!)

VALUE? I am always interested in books where the author destroyed copies--if he or she really went to work it can cause great rarity. There is a poorish unjacketed copy on ABE at £50 and a VG+ copy, also sans jacket, at UK's Biblion site at £170. I guess in a jacket £200 is achievable but untested. A scarce book - but Bryant is not seriously collected at this level so far--unlike another writer associated with Nazi appeasement the military historian, Major General JFC Fuller, onetime pal of Crowley and known as 'Boney.' His works can scale £300. With Bryant his most expensive item is a 12 LP set of speeches by Churchill where he writes the 'appraisal' (sometimes seen at £200 or more) and his signed limited Dropmore Press edition from 1946 of 'Historian's Holiday'. You can buy one of the signed edition of 25 of this at just over £100. [ W/Q * ]

India in Transition. Aga Khan, 1918.

His Highness Aga Khan. INDIA IN TRANSITION. A Study of Political Evolution By His Highness Aga Khan, Putnam, NY & Warner, London 1918.

Current Selling Prices
$900-$2000 /£450-£1100

ASIAN HISTORY / POLITICS
Scarce, valuable and much sought after book. The New York edition is white cloth lettered gilt at the spine so attracts soiling and is unlikely to show up in stellar condition. This Aga Khan (III) was the 48th Ima'm of the Shia Ismaili Muslims known as Sultan Muhammad Shah (1877-1957.) He was writing on the need for reforms among Muslims, communal electorates and representation. The Story of Pakistan site says of him that he:-

'...greatly contributed towards the political cause of the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. He led the Muslim delegation to Simla in 1906 where the Muslims, for the first time, put forward their demand for a separate electorate. He was elected the first president of All India Muslim League in 1906, an office that he held till 1912. Aga Khan was a man of vision and was of the opinion that the reform scheme introduced by the British would be beneficial to the Muslims. He wrote a book on the need of reforms for the Muslims, known as "India in Transition", which was published in 1918.'

He made his first trip to Europe in 1898 and was received graciously at Windsor Castle by Queen Victoria who sat him beside her in the seat reserved for the highest religious head in the country. This signal honour occasioned great surprise, as no foreigner had been shown so much respect before, and was given wide publicity. He answered many questions about the famine and plague in India and was given a respectful hearing by a distinguished company.

At Devonshire House and Landsdowne House, lavish parties were given in his honour. "He wore pince-nez and twirled a neat black moustache which gave him an appearance more academic than military, but there was a sparkle in his conversation that titillated a London influenced by Wilde and Beardsley..."remarked one of His Royal Highness's biographers. His horse Jeddah, won the Epsom Derby (100 to 1 odds) - the first win for the colours of the Aga Khan. The first of many! [ W/Q * ]


VALUE? One copy listed at an ambitious price, perhaps several times its real value given condition (and tried without sale on ebay) has been there a year at a fluctuating £3000; another better copy at £2500 (the preferred London edition) is no longer for sale. Possibly a flash in the pan price although there is alot of money in some Indian items due to the many high net worth Indian collectors. It is also the only copy currently available although cheaper copies may come and go quite quickly with this price as a marker.

It is hard to believe that a book published in London and New York by major publishers is so thin on the ground. One thing you never see are the books that sell upon upload. Lastly a look at ebay shows a copy from Sep 2006 rebound in leather seliing at £200 and another mentioned as having sold at £400. Ebay, as always, throws a curve ball at the prices. It is possible there was also an Indian edition (in English.)

Lady with a Mead Cup. Ritual, Prophecy and Lordship in the European Warband from La Téne to the Viking Age

Michael Enright. LADY WITH A MEAD CUP. RITUAL PROPHECY AND LORDSHIP IN THE EUROPEAN WARBAND FROM LA TENE TO THE VIKING AGE. Four Courts Press, Dublin, 1995.

Current Selling Prices
$350-$750 /£200-£400 ISBN 1851821880



MEDIAEVAL HISTORY
Celtic influence on Teutonic culture; scholarly work without 'New Age' or 'Goddess' trappings - odd that it is so much wanted -- possibly it's on college reading lists. 'This title is currently out of stock' is the notice at the Four Courts website. Their puff for the book goes:-

Lady with a Mead Cup is a broad-ranging, innovative and strikingly original study of the early medieval barbarian cup-offering ritual and its social, institutional and religious significance. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology and philology and medieval history, Professor Enright has produced the first work in English on the warband and on the significance of barbarian drinking rituals. Taking Beowulf as his point of departure, he studies the place of these rituals in the Germanic warband, their importance in terms of status creation, and the role of women in their administration.

They also quote a pertinent review-'Enright goes further than most authors in terms of both scope and detail, tracing the role of the lord's female companion back to the beginning of La Téne culture ... What eventually emerges is a surprisingly consistent picture of the leader and his lady in whom we find much of the ritual and prophecy of the book's title' J.A. Tasioulas, Medium Aoeum. Last year we bought a few boxes of books published by this expensive and estimable Irish scholarly press and they went, as they say in Canada, 'like snow off a dike.' I trust the lady with the cup was not among them!

VALUE? There were several used copies at Amazon between $300 and $500 about 9 months ago. They have all sold and only one remains at a slightly barking $1600. They have managed to find that grail of buffoon booksellers - the price at which no one will buy the book. Possibly if Robbie Williams or Donald 'Badhair' Trump suddenly get interested in La Tene it will sell. Before the net when booksellers had to price by instinct a bookseller might put £30 on this max, half of its putative in print price. I suspect that copies come and go against the madhatter price possibly for as much as $800. It will probably get reprinted at some point, the author himself is quoted as saying it is not worth more than $200. [Want level 25-50 Highish ]

Where Troy Once Stood. Iman Wilkens.

Yesterday I mentioned Wikipedia and their piece on Arthur Bernard Cook which was rather thin. Wikipedia is, of course commendable and vast and we have occasionally contributed to it. As a bookseller you occasionally get obscure info or can make a hitherto unnoticed connection and Wikipedia is great as a residuary for such facts that otherwise would drift into the air like Woodbine smoke in a betting shop. The DNB is good on dead Brits especially the new 60 volume work. In almost every case of 20th Century individuals it states how much money they left. E.g. George Harrison left £98,916,464, Arthur Bernard Cook left £14,249 9s. 8d in 1954 and Bram Stoker left £5269 12s. 7d. in 1912. Agatha Christie in 1976 left £147,810, which doesn't seem enough but was probably a useful sum at the time. They also tend to get an expert or even friend to write the piece and occasionally they wax anecdotal, eg with Bernard Cook there are stories of a couple of amusing remarks he made on his death bed. He would probably have uttered a loud 'Harrumph' at today's work...

Iman Wilkens. WHERE TROY ONCE STOOD: THE MYSTERY OF HOMER'S ILIAD AND ODYSSEY REVEALED. Rider, London, 1990. ISBN : 0712624635

Current Selling Prices
$200-$400 /£120-£200


ANCIENT WORLD/ REVISIONIST HISTORY
A curious and much wanted work with an entirely new theory about Homer's works. Arguing that the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" do not fit the topography, geology, climate and oceanic tidal patterns of the eastern Mediterranean, Wilkens relocates the Homeric scene in western Europe and the northern Atlantic. He claims that the Trojan War was fought on a far larger scale than previously thought, by Celts from regions as far apart as Scandinavia and Spain. Troy was, in fact, in East Anglia! Slightly difficult to swallow but apparently fairly convincing. Also not entirely new, theories like this have been around for 200 years now. [Want level 50 - 75 High]

VALUE? Hard to find a decent copy for less than $150 (paperback) and jacketed hardbacks twice that, but never much more. A revised reprint appeared in Holland in 2005 but is expensive and oddly uncommon. 1990 a US ed appeared in 1991 and goes for similar money. Not especially scarce. At one point a relisting GOPWO from Texas was asking $5000 for the book. The devout young man appears to have vanished (or been sent to Bedlam.)

*GOPWO = Grossly over priced web operator, from a phrase my Dad used from the RAF in WW2 for 'Grossly over promoted warrant officer' -a type that annoyed him greatly. Another acronym that actually has some currency is UNCLE --for books which cannot, as yet, be found listed on the web. The letters stand for Unique No Copy Located Elsewhere.