The 2nd City of London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers) in the Great War (1914-19)

This fine unmarked copy of one of most opulent regimental histories of the first world war (and beyond) appears to have been unread. When collating the volume we were struck by the crisp sound the covers and endpapers made when the book was opened and the soft crackle as the map folds were smoothed down.

Although the regiment's history may have gone back to the Napoleonic Wars, funding for the Royal National Rifles (the precursor of the 2nd Londons) began only in 1860, with enrolment later that year, with the "formal acceptance of its services on behalf of Her Majesty Queen Victoria . . . announced in January 1861, Sir John Villiers Shelley, M P for Westminster, being appointed to the command".

While the book itself is limited to the First World War, the part it played in the Anglo-Boer War is described in the introduction, and includes references to "Fourteen Streams", "Colesberg", "Pretoria", "Eastern Transvaal under General Ian Hamilton", "transferred to the Delagoa Bay Railway", "Elands River Station", "Namaqualand Field Force".

Quarter-bound in scarlet buckram and royal blue linen boards with the regimental coat of arms gilt-embossed to the upper board and gilt lettering and rules to the spine. Top edge gilt. Grey endpapers with repeats of the coat of arms printed in blue. xxii + 463 pp of text, appendixes and indexes + inserted errata sheet + frontispiece and 19 other inserted pp of b/w photographic plates + 22 inserted folding maps (as well as 6 maps in the text). 

The boards are very lightly rubbed at the corners. The binding itself is as-new and the gilt page-edge is bright. There are no ownership or other markings on the endpapers or elsewhere and the contents, including the plates and maps, are complete, fine and bright white.

Among many other acknowledgments, the author thanks the principals of the printers and binders, W H and L Collingridge, for their publishing assistance, the book having been published by the regiment itself.