BROOKE, Brigadeer Walter (author). Anne BULLEN (illustrator). Gladeye. The War Horse. London Collins. 1939

8vo.; publisher’s emerald green cloth lettered black to spine, in pictorial dustwrapper; pp. [iv], 15-107; illustrated throughout after detailed pencilled drawings by Anne Bullen; a very fresh copy indeed with small sun-lightening to spine ends, internally fresh with offset-toning to free endpapers and an ownership inscription, dated 1939, in an uncommonly attractive unclipped dustwrapper (5s.) with gentle toning to white backgrounds and just mild dusting and nicking.

First edition, with a printed dedication to H.R.H. Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) with Royal assent. This is the true story of a WWI war horse penned by his master Brigadier Walter Brooke but, in the style of Helen Sewell’s great equine classic “Black Beauty”, narrated by the horse. The novel describes his memories from his early days in Ireland to prize-winning events at Richmond and Olympia, through to his wartime experiences in Flanders and Macedonia, before his glorious homecoming and retirement, to hunt, play polo, and engage in farm work in Devon.