The Colditz Story [with] The Latter Days
REID, P. R.
COLDITZ COMPLETE IN DUSTWRAPPERS
Published: Hodder & Stoughton, [1952-54]
Stock code: 33422
Price: £188.00
2 vols., 8vo., Mixed Impressions, with frontispieces, numerous photographs, illustrations and facsimiles (several full-page) and double-page plan in the text, front endpaper map in second volume; blue cloth, gilt backs, a very good, bright, clean set in dustwrapper, the latter lightly frayed and creased at edges; first volume with minor loss (not affecting lettering) at head of backstrip.
Dustwrapper artwork by John Watton. First volume: fifth impression; second volume: first edition. The first volume culminates with the author's 'home run' in 1942. Reid's two classics of POW life and escape began a virtual sub-industry (of astonishingly variable quality) including dozens of later books, several feature films, countless magazine pieces and a long-running TV series. There is, however, no mistaking the calibre of the original. Now that Colditz is to become (in part at least) a youth hostel, interest in its wartime role will only grow. SETS OF EARLY PRINTINGS ARE VERY SCARCE, ESPECIALLY IN THIS CONDITION. Enser, p. 151.