Over My Shoulder: The Autobiography of Major-general Sir Ernest D Swinton

First edition, first impression. x, 282pp, with portrait plate frontispiece and a few further monochrome plate illustrations interleafed in text.  Green cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering on red relief on spine, gilt motif on upper panel.  8vo.  Cloth very gently rounded on spine ends.  There’s a neat ownership stamp on the front paste down else internally neat, clean, bright and tight.  In its original dust wrapper, shelf worn, rubbed on edges, bumped along upper edge, and a little toned, especially over the spine.

Major-general Sir Ernest Swinton was a British Army officer, serving in both the first and second world wars.  During the first world war he was instrumental in the development and adoption of the military tank – credited with having first used the term ‘tank’ as a code-name for the first British tracked, armoured fighting vehicle; and during the second had a personal face to face meeting with Adolf Hitler.  He was also the author, under the pen name Ole Luk-Oie, of a series of startlingly prophetic military stories which were best sellers in their day (prior to the first world war), including The Green Curve and The Defence of Duffer’s Drift.