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CLAUSEWITZ, General Carl von.
On War:
Translated by Colonel J. J. Graham, from the Third German Edition. Three Volumes Complete in One.
First full English edition of Clausewitz' Vom Kriege, which was first published 1832-4 as part of his posthumous works. In view of a recent estimation of On War as "the most important general treatment of its subject yet produced," (Oxford Companion to Military History), the circumstances surrounding the publication of this translation are remarkably low-key. The translator, Colonel James John Graham, was a somewhat obscure figure. After passing out from Sandhurst in 1822 he served as judge-advocate in the West Indies, and briefly as an engineer. But between 1832 and 1835 he took civilian employment as secretary and treasurer to the South-Eastern Railway Company in England, and his only significant military service seems to have been as military secretary to Sir Robert Hussey Vivian, commander of the British "Turkish Contingent" in the Crimean War. The reasons for the timing of this publication seem similarly obscure. The inference that it was aimed to cash in on the interest in events of 1870-71 or on Moltke's praise of Clausewitz is rejected by Bassford in his Clausewitz in English: "There is no internal evidence that the events of 1870-71 were the motivating factor or any evidence of an interest in Moltke; in fact neither Graham nor the contemporary reviewers even mentioned Moltke." In fact the publication was pretty much a disaster: "Only 245 copies were printed in 1873. Of these 21 went to Graham and 32 were sent out as free review copies. Of the rest, 192 were still languishing in the publisher's hands in 1877. For some unknown reason, Trübner printed a further 440 copies in that year, and 572 were still in the warehouse in 1885 [which seems to indicate that just 60 copies were sold in twelve years]. The book drew no substantial audience and Graham's material rewards thus appear to have been few." An important, and understandably uncommon, edition.
Large octavo. Original blue cloth, vermilion paper label to spine, compartments formed of triple gilt rules, panelling in black to the boards, brown surface-paper endpapers. Mounted photographically reproduced portrait frontispiece with facsimile signature. Slightly worn at the extremities, cloth spotted, corners worn through and spine chipped head and tail, joints a little loose, light toning, but overall a very good copy.
