TOMLINSON, H.M. All Our Yesterdays (signed Limited Edn.). William Heinemann, 1930.
Royal 8vo. Original fawn buckram, spine lettered in gilt, top edges gilt, in original slipcase; pp. [vi] + 539, frontispiece portrait; some dulling to the spine, slipcase a little rubbed at edges, nonetheless a very good copy. Provenance: front pastedown with bookplate of Sidney Herbert Williams FSA, barrister, bibliophile and bibliographer of Lewis Carroll.
First edition, this being number 168 of 1025 numbered copies, signed by the author. Tomlinson's autobiographical account of his war experiences.
Tomlinson began his writing career by contributing material to the Morning Leader and in 1904 he was employed as a full-time reporter for the newspaper. Tomlinson specialized in articles on ships and travelling. Ernest Peake, the editor, sent him on several trips including sailing 2,000 miles up the Amazon. His first book, The Sea and the Jungle (1912) was immediately identified as a classic.
Despite the success of The Sea and the Jungle, Tomlinson continued to work as a journalist. A leader-writer for the Daily News, Tomlinson was sent to France on the outbreak of the First World War. Soon afterwards he was recruited by the British Army as its official war correspondent.
Tomlinson became disillusioned with the conduct of the war and in 1917 returned to England to become literary editor of The Nation. Tomlinson worked closely with the magazine's editor, H. W. Massingham, a strong opponent of the war. Tomlinson and Massingham both resigned from The Nation in April, 1923 when Joseph Rowntree decided to sell the journal to a group headed by John Maynard Keynes.
Tomlinson's first novel, Gallions Reach, won the Femina Vie Heureuse prize in 1927. Three years later Tomlinson published this autobiographical account of his war experiences, All Our Yesterdays. Another anti-war book, Mars His Idiot, appeared in 1935.
#2118815