Jungle Night. A Novel.

FIRST EDITION, pp. 319, crown 8vo, original blue cloth, lettered in black to backstrip and upper board, a little rubbed at extremities, a few faint spots to edges, the dustjacket with an excellent design by Dorothy Burroughes, a little nicked, chipped and rubbed to extremities, some light soiling and a faint waterstain at head of rear panel, very good. A scarce first edition. Campbell's novels this work preceded by 'Poo Lorn of the Elephants', 'Death in Tiger Valley', and 'Fear in the Forest' are based on his own experiences as a 'teak wallah' in the teak forests of what was then Siam, with plots centred on the animals and their keepers. This is a crime novel, listed by Hubin, though unusual in the fact that the crimes take place among elephants one of whom is killing other members of the herd with the detective role undertaken by Jim Dales, a catcher whose fondness for a certain bull blinds him to the killer's identity. It climaxes with a great clash between Dales's herd and a wild herd being driven towards them by the trader Sung Toh, a battle in which the hero's favourite, 'Poo Taw', is fatally wounded. The dustjacket is the work of Dorothy Burroughes, an artist who studied at the Slade and who worked largely in the media of poster-design and book-illustration (including of her own writing for children) often with animals as their theme.…