Books

London: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1899. First editions of Churchill's history of the conquest of the Sudan. Octavo, 2 volumes, original cloth, illustrated with 22 maps and plans, several folding. Association copy, with signatures and annotations by E.B. Lack, who helped to supply gunboats to the Admiralty during the campaign. Woods A2(a). In near fine condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell slipcase. Churchill served in the 21st Lancers during Lord Kitchener’s campaign on the Upper Nile in the late 1890s and was a participant there in the last great cavalry charge of the British Army. “Hopping on a ferry, and not bothering to trouble his commanding officer in distant South India for leave, Winston turned up in the Abbasya barracks in Cairo on August 2, 1898, and joined the 21st’s A Squadron. He was fully outfitted, had bought a horse, and was, most important of all, equipped with a commission from the Morning Post to send dispatches at £15 a time” (Keegan, 46).…

The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan (1899), by Winston Churchill, is a history of the British imperial involvement in the Sudan and the campaign to reconquer the Sudan following the defeat of the revolt led by the Mahdist leader, Muhammad Ahmad.