Sergeant Lamb's America de Graves, Robert von Ranke (1895-1985) - 1940

xiii+380 pages with facsimile letter. Octavo (8 3/4" x 6 1/4") bound in original publisher's red cloth with green paper label on spine and cover with white lettering in original pictorial jacket.. First American edition.
Graves first came across the name of Sergeant Roger Lamb in 1914, when, as a young officer in the Royal Welch Fusilier, he was instructing his plantoon in regimental history. Though obviously one of the outstanding soldiers of the period, detail information abut Lamb was scarce in England; the letter reporduced on page v was, as a matter of fact, the only one to be found in Lamb's own hand. Twenty-five years later Graves came to live in Princeton, New Jersey, for a time. He had not forgotten Lamb; and what place could be more appropriate to further research than the town where Washington's defeat of the Hessian Division of the British Arm was a proud tradition? Graves went to work, got the material he wanted, returned to England, and mailed his manuscript to Random House.
Condition:
Some light pencil marginalia on end papers, viii and 137. Jacket spine ends chipped with tears, corners chipped, closed edge tears with creases, price clipped else very good in like jacket.