Illustrated Guide to the War or Sultan Slav & Czar including population races & creeds of Turkey; historic sketches of Servia Bulgaria Bosnia Montenegro; religion of Islam and the Greek Church; official & diplomatic documents; Bulgarian atrocities.

Original colour illustrated wraps 13 x 18cm. 144 + 2pp including several in-text illustrations, double and full-page maps and large colour folding “New Map of the Seat of War in the East”. Wraps dusted and worn with loss to spine paper affecting titles. Binding loose and fragile. Pages mostly near fine with some light creasing spotting, darkening to edges of title page, prelims and endpapers. Large map neatly folded without tears. Presumed first and only edition. No author indicated. Rare – traced to only 4 institutional, all of which on Copac (BL, Cambridge, Oxford, NLS). Published early 1877 (according to the London Mid Surrey Times And General Observer, 16 June 1877) which places it at the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. This war resulted in Russian territorial gains, independence for Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, re-establishment of the Principality of Bulgaria, and (via the Congress of Berlin, 1878), Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and British control over Cyprus. Britain feared Russia's expansion into Central Asia towards India: “We are now witnessing the commencement of what may be one of the greatest wars which have ever shaken the continent of Europe, if, indeed, it does not extend into Asia, beyond the present limits of the Turkish empire, and affect interest which may lead to action on the part of the Western Powers, now watching with anxiety the development of events.” (p5).…