Two Sticks

1923. Presumed first edition. 127pp. plus a 16-page publisher's catalogue dated October 1923. In this book the author tells of his experience of a sudden ans cruel frustration. Born with a passion for physical exercise, a deep love of the open air, and a mind whose curiosity could never be sated by observation and adventure, Gerald Slade found himself suddenly sentenced to solitary confinement in the prison of his own body. How he met this doom, how he decided to fight it, and how he succeeded in breaking free from the worst conditions of his fate, is the story of this unusual and haunting volume. The book is bound in the original grey-blue cloth covered boards with black titling on the spine and front board. The case of the book is in very good condition with some shelf wear and light soiling to the boards and a little bubbling to the cloth near the fore edge of the front board. The spine ends are lightly bumped and the spine is very slightly cocked. The contents are tight and clean with noticeable foxing to the first few pages, including the title-page, and some scattered light foxing elsewhere within the book. The fore and bottom edges of the text block are also foxed and on some pages this has seeped a little way into the fore and/or bottom margin. There is a brief inscription to Lord [Douglas] Haig from Lady Palmer, dated 1915, on the front free endpaper and a bookseller's label on the top corner of the front fixed endpaper.…