REMINISCENCES OF SYRIA AND THE HOLY LAND

In two volumes

First edition: 2 volumes. 348 + 415 pages, lithograph frontispieces, folding map torn along the bottom fold in volume one, diagram in volume two, the blind stamped brown cloth boards are worn, decorated spines gilt with tops and bottoms slightly faded, front hinge weak in volume two with preliminary pages working loose but holding on to the netting, uncut edges, corners bumped.

Napier, Edward Delaval Hungerford Elers (1808–1870), lieutenant-general and author, born in 1808, was elder son of Edward Elers, lieutenant in the royal navy, Edward was educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and on 11 Aug. 1825 was appointed ensign in the 46th foot, in which he became lieutenant on 11 Oct. 1826, and captain on 21 June 1831. He served with his regiment in India, The regiment returned home in 1833, and in 1836 Napier entered the senior department of the Royal Military College, but left in 1837, before passing his examination, on the regiment being ordered to Gibraltar. He commanded the light company for several years.

When the British fleet was engaged on the coast of Syria in 1840, Napier was sent out with the local rank of lieutenant-colonel and assistant adjutant-general. For his services in Syria and Egypt he was made brevet lieutenant-colonel from 31 Dec. 1841, and received the Syrian medal and a gold medal from the Sultan. Being reported medically unfit to accompany his regiment to the West Indies, he retired on half-pay unattached in 1843, and afterwards resided some time in Portugal. In 1846 he was sent to the Cape with other special service field officers to organise the native levies, and commanded bodies of irregulars during the Kaffir war of 1846–7. He died at Westhill, Shanklin, Isle of Wight, on 19 June 1870, aged 63. Napier was a man of literary and artistic ability, and a frequent and very practical writer in the public press and elsewhere on professional topics. Besides contributing to the magazines, chiefly ‘Bailey's’ and the ‘United Service Magazine,’ for over twenty years, he was author of the following works: 1. ‘Scenes and Sports in Foreign Lands,’ 2 vols. 1840. 2. ‘Excursions on the Shores of the Mediterranean,’ 2 vols. 1842. 3. ‘Reminiscences of Syria,’ 1843. 4. ‘Wild Sports in Europe, Asia, and Africa,’ 1844. 5. ‘Excursions in South Africa, including a History of the Cape Colony’ (‘Book of the Cape’), 1849. 6. ‘Life and Correspondence of Admiral Sir Charles Napier,’ 1862.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Edward_Napier