LIFE OF FREDERICK COURTENAY SELOUS, DSO

Author and Title: Millais (John Guille) LIFE OF FREDERICK COURTENAY SELOUS, DSO

Collation: Limited edition: 387 pages, including a historical introduction by E.E. Burke, full-page photogravures, combat illustrations, natural history plates, and field sketches. Original publisher's premium full library cloth hardcover, intricately blind-stamped with gilt spine typography and cover framing motifs, issued without dustwrapper. A very good copy. The textured cloth boards are neat, unfaded, and square, showing only light superficial handling friction and standard shelf wear along the bottom board margins and spine crowns. The cover gilt remains highly reflective and sharp. The text block is robust and unbroken; internal pages, high-contrast photographic text inserts, and archival charts are crisp, immaculate, and entirely free from marginalia, owner names, or page creases.

This is no. 765 of a limited edition of 1,000 copies.

Notes: Originally published by Longmans, Green & Co. in 1919, this Heritage Series facsimile reprint (Volume VII) stands as the quintessential account of the man who inspired Sir Henry Rider Haggard's literary hero, Allan Quatermain.

Written by his close friend and fellow naturalist J.G. Millais, the work traces Selous' journeys across Southeast Africa from his arrival in 1871 through his exploits as a big game hunter, collector for the British Museum, and military scout. It captures his complex relationships with King Lobengula and Cecil Rhodes, alongside his ultimate sacrifice during World War I, where he fell to a German sniper in East Africa at the age of 64.

John Guille Millais (1865–1931), son of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Sir John Everett Millais, was an acclaimed British artist and naturalist whose deep friendship with Selous allowed him unprecedented access to private diaries and hunting journals. Selous' extensive personal papers and collections are preserved internationally, notably within the Natural History Museum.
Size: 8vo (225 x 145 mm)
Imprint: Salisbury, The Pioneer Head, 1975