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A specially produced copy likely issued to dignitaries, from the library of Admiral Sir Martin Dunbar-Nasmith although unmarked as such. It contains an additional six postcard illustrations of HMS Dreadnought, Bellerophon, Superb, Invincible, and Indomitable. Dunbar-Nasmith captained a D-class submarine from 1911 to 1912 and served aboard HMS Indomitable in November 1908. The launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 represented a revolution in naval firepower. "In her day, the Dreadnought was the cynosure of the early twentieth-century battleship. So epoch making was this one ship that all subsequent battleships are usually referred to as dreadnoughts, the name becoming a generic term" (Parkinson, p. xi). As such, the British government was keen to show her off to foreign visitors. In June 1908 the Prime Minister of Nepal, Maharaja Sri Teen Chandra Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana (1863-1929), and his entourage were invited to watch the ship on exercise in the English Channel. To accompany this visit, the admiralty distributed a small souvenir volume with descriptions and photographs of Dreadnought, the Navy's D-class submarines, and its torpedo boat destroyers. There are two known states of this work. The more common features a gilt-lettered front board, title page, captioned tissue guard for the photograph of Dreadnought, and folding map. The present, rarer, state does not have these features but instead has six additional chromolithograph postcard illustrations at the rear. Dunbar-Nasmith (1883-1965) was a Royal Navy submarine captain throughout the First World War and awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions in the Sea of Marmara in 1915. Roger Parkinson, Dreadnought: The Ship That Changed the World, 2015. Octavo. Eight tipped-in gelatin silver prints on matte paper, with captioned tissue guards, and six colour postcard illustrations. Original blue calf by Eyre & Spottiswoode, spine gilt in compartments, flat bands, elaborate gilt panels to boards, front board stamped with royal arms in gilt, rear board stamped with admiralty device in gilt, gilt dentelles, silk doublures and endpapers, gilt edges, binder's stamp to front free endpaper verso. Abrasions and silverfishing to front board, edges, and dentelles, binding sprung, pages a little crinkled, some foxing internally: a very good copy.
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