A Few New Arrivals and some early books

 About a week ago, my small order from Caliver Books arrived. It had taken about a month, mainly because they did not have all my order in stock and had to try to get it supplied by Nick Eyre - in the end, they gave up waiting for him and sent what they had available. This is basically a small reinforcement for my Russian Civil War collection

After that, I have dug out a few books that I have owned for 40 years or more. The theme that's been covered on several blogs is of books that inspired a life long love of toy soldiers. I no longer have all the earliest wargaming books I once owned, but I have managed to find a few interesting titles I hope.

First up is this ancient tome, printed during WW1 to raise money for the Red Cross. It belonged to a friend of my dads who had served in the British army throughout WW2 - he was at Dunkirk and was also in the Western Desert. It was a book IO always gravitated to whenever we visited him and his wife in Edinbrgh, and when he passed away, his wife let me have it

Here is part of the foreword - I thought it would be of interest in revealing the prevailing attitude towards the German enemy during the First World War....

The book is illustrated throughout with these beautiful reproduction prints of many iconic pieces of Victorian military art. Hopefully, the descriptions of each scene are legible when you expand the image,

The next book has an inscription in the front cover indicating it was given to my dad as a Christmas present in 1941, when he would have been 11 or 12 years old

Now one of my very first wargaming books - you can see from the state of the dust jacket its been well used over the years, if not well cared for!

Two more early wargaming books - probably acquired around 1978

A couple of the first Napoleonic uniform books I bought

I have had this book since the mid 70's. I joined a Military Book Club via an ad in Military Modelling - each month they sent out a brochure with twenty or thirty titles to choose from. The trick was, you had to reply DECLINING the book of the month, or they sent it to you as a matter of course! The intro deal was 3 books at 99p each or something like that - and this is one of the titles I chose.

This next  book will be a very familiar title to most wargamers. Again, a special deal in Military Modelling in the late 70's let me buy both volumes in paperback for the princely sum of £4.95! Unfortunately, I lent volume 1 to a mate here in NZ about twenty years ago but never got it back. Volume 1 was the more useful too, as it had the French line plus the Brits...oh well, c'est la vie, or la guerre!

Finally, this was another book of my dads that I loved as a kid and I am pleased I still have it in my book cupboard. Its a simple guide to heraldry and how it works. I love the quirky cartoon like illustrations!

That's all for tonight - I hope all readers and visitors have a great Christmas wherever in the world they are. I wont wish you a Happy New Year at this stage, as hopefully I will post again before the end of 2020.