"Problems of the Libyan Desert." Reprinted from "The Geographical Journal" for July, August, and September 1927.

Presentation copy of this scarce offprint, inscribed by the author on the front cover, "Col. de Lancey Forth, with the author's cordial regards." Likely passed by the recipient to Orde Wingate in the early 1930s, while the latter was planning his own quest to find the Zerzura oasis, this copy remained in the Wingate family papers until their dispersal in 1996. John Ball (1872-1941), Director of Desert Surveys in Egypt, undertook several expeditions to the Libyan Desert in the 1920s, and his "Problems of the Libyan Desert" inspired a generation of explorers, including the young Lieutenant Wingate, to search for the mythical site of Zerzura. Wingate, serving in the Sudan Defence Force, shared this oasis fascination with Colonel Nowell Barnard de Lancey Forth (1879-1933), a former camel corps commander, whose efforts to locate the site earned him election to the Royal Geographical Society, the Order of the Nile, and the Order of the Mejidieh. While planning his RGS-backed expedition in the early 1930s, Wingate consulted both Ball and de Lancey Forth as to his proposed route. His 1933 search for Zerzura marked an important point in Wingate's life, for it "proved to him that he had the inner strength to live and survive in an unforgiving environment" (Royle) and prepared him for his time in Palestine and with the Chindits in Burma. Provenance: by descent to Lieutenant-Colonel Orde Jonathan Wingate (1944-2000), Wingate's son, and sold as part of Lot 373 in the dispersal of Wingate's papers, Sotheby's, 11 June 1996. It was purchased by Steve Forbes, the chairman of Forbes Magazine and a presidential candidate in the 1996 and 2000 US elections. Trevor Royle, Orde Wingate: A Man of Genius, 1903-1944, 2014. Octavo. With 10 half-tone plates, large folding colour map, illustrations in text. Original blue card wrappers, front cover lettered in black. Spine repaired, covers with a few losses and closed tears, map folds repaired on verso with archival tape: a good copy only.…