FULLER, J. F. C

£450 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Decisive Battles of the Western World and their Influence upon History. First editions, first impressions of Fuller's new-fashioned Creasy, a work which initiated the post-war revival in his reputation. A title which is becoming decidedly uncommon, especially in the often embrittled jackets. Here with the prospectuses for the first and second, and the third volumes loosely inserted. In his preface Fuller speaks of his setting out in 1923 to collect data, "and this led in 1939-40 to the publication of two volumes on Decisive Battles. But as I was far from satisfied with the book as it then stood, when shortly after the second volume appeared the whole stock was destroyed by enemy action, in no way did I regret its loss, because it presented me with the opportunity to rewrite the work". This process has been described by Brian Holden Reid as "pruning the fascist encrustation" (ODNB). The rewritten and expanded version met with universal acclaim, The New York Herald Tribune commending Fuller's "superb gifts of analysis and judgement", the Sydney Morning Herald considering that it "cannot fail to be accepted as a valuable and original contribution to historical research", while The Spectator crowned him "the most eminent living writer on war". With mature consideration, in his precursor to Reid's ODNB piece Michael Howard described Decisive Battles as "the major work on which Fuller's reputation as a historian must rest … thenceforward he was able to bask in the sunshine of a

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