Friends, Though Divided. A Tale of the Civil War
London, Griffith & Farran, 1883 [first edition, with the advertisements dated '9.83'].
Octavo, [viii], 384, 32 (advertisements) pages with decorative head- and tail-pieces plus 8 plates (the frontispiece with a tissue guard).
Pictorial blue cloth blocked in gilt and black; cloth a little flecked and marked, sunned on the spine, and lightly rubbed or worn at the extremities; light stains to the top and bottom edges; front flyleaf neatly excised; half-title tanned and offset; small light stain to the blank top margin of two plates and a handful of leaves, with light associated cockling to about 25 consecutive leaves; notwithstanding, an agreeable copy.
With a gift inscription on the front pastedown: 'R.M.W. Thirkell & G.L.A. Thirkell, Christmas 1904, from L.F. Piesse'. The Tasmanian Thirkell brothers, who would have been in their early teens when they were given this book, both served as officers in the Middle East, England and France during the First World War. The elder brother, Robert Mowbray Winston Thirkell, was awarded the MBE after the war, and was later a career officer, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. The second, George Lancelot Allnut Thirkell, served with various field engineer units in Gallipoli and France. While stationed in England in late 1917 he married the well-connected divorcee Angela McInnes at the Kensington registry office. In 1920 the couple sailed to Australia, but Angela found life in suburban Melbourne dull and the marriage did not last. She returned to Britain around 1930 and soon began a successful career as a novelist under her married name, Angela Thirkell. In 1934 she published 'Trooper to the Southern Cross' under the nom de plume of Leslie Parker, a fictionalised retelling of the couple's eventful voyage from England to Australia on the troopship 'Friedrichsruh', told through the eyes of a character based on her husband George. Dartt, pages 61-62.
Item #105233
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