"Confidential"
[Confidential] Extract from the Persian Gulf Gazetteer.
8vo (126 x 188 mm). (2), 273, (1) pp. With printer's device on title-page. Modern blue library cloth with title to spine: original printed wrappers bound in.
€ 18,000.00
Only edition of this rare intelligence report, marked "confidential" and extracted from John G. Lorimer's massive four-volume "Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia", presumably for more convenient use in the field during service in Mesopotamia. Contains extensive capsule information on geography, tribes, and infrastructure, arranged alphabetically from "'Aziziyah Qadha" ("a division of the Sanjaq of Baghdad") to "Zubaid" ("a numerous and widely distributed tribe in Turkish 'Iraq").
Extremely rare: no copies listed on OCLC or Jisc Hub. The only other known copy is held by the Kings' College London Archives, within the Dowson collection, assembled by the Army Intelligence officer Valentine H. W. Dowson (1896-1980).
Title-page inscribed "E. S. Berry Capt., Samarra 1919". This is presumably the Berry of that name who served with the 91st Punjabi regiment in Mesopotamia during World War I.
Small light dampstain in upper margin of final 30 pages. One corner of upper wrapper neatly cut away. A few contemporary pencil annotations in Arabic.
