No Stars to Guide
( Konstance PARES, illus. ) SELIGMAN, Adrian
Decorations by Konstance Pares.
IN FULL THEMED MOROCCO
Published: Hodder & Stoughton, [1947]
Stock code: 27065
Price: £460.00
8vo., First Edition, with tinted frontispiece, wood-engraved title-vignette, 20 plates printed in blue, numerous wood-engraved illustrations in the text and 6 large folding maps (one printed in colours); handsomely bound in full navy crushed morocco, sides with gilt frame border, back with raised bands, second and fourth compartments lettered in gilt, all other compartments tooled in gilt with anchor motif, gilt top, hand-made endpapers, ribbon marker, custom-made slip-case, an elegant copy ideal as a gift or for presentation.
In one of the earliest personal memoirs of naval service in WWII, Seligman gives a thinly veiled account of his experiences in the Aegean in 1941 when he helped to smuggle five Russian merchantmen through the Axis blockade. He returned on the MV Olinda and that journey also is described in full. Although there is no connection whatever, this little-known story is reminiscent in sheer daring and blatant skulduggery of Maclean's fictitious The Guns of Navarone. This is an extraordinary book in other ways. Produced by a major publisher not often given to war memoirs, it is unusually well-produced with lavish illustration and large and detailed maps. The print run must have been small for it is very scarce. Enser, p.63; Law, 0360.