BURTON, Richard Francis, Sir (1821-1890). A New System of Sword Exercise for Infantry. London: William Clowes and Sons, 1876.

8vo (181 x 117 mm). Wood-engraved half-title, engraved diagrammatic plate, numerous engraved illustrations. (Slight toning and occasional spotting, a few minor creases.) Original red cloth double-ruled in blind, upper cover enclosing pictorial gilt-stamped crossed-swords design and gilt-lettered (spine sunned, slight soiling, a touch of wear to extremities, hinges just starting). Provenance: Sir Alfred Edward Codrington (1854-1945), Lieutenant-General in the British Army serving in Africa (signature, Goldstream Guards, 1887).

FIRST EDITION OF “ONE OF THE RAREST BURTON ITEMS” (Spink), one of only 500 copies printed, according to the publisher. After a lifelong fascination with swords and other fighting implements, while in Boulonge in 1851 waiting on Isabel’s decision regarding his marriage proposal, Burton took up fencing and earned the title of Maître d'armes. A New System of Sword Exercise for Infantry picks up on Burton’s previous work on the bayonet in 1853, and aims to fill what Burton saw as woeful neglect of theory and practice with the sabre for infantry: “[A New System] contains two distinct novelties, the Manchette System and the Reverse or Backcut; and finally, that it aspires to be the first Treatise in which the broadsword is scientifically taken in hand” (Introductory Remarks, p. 20). This copy was once owned by Lieutenant-General Codrington, who entered the Coldstream Guards in 1873, serving actively in the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882, and later commanding the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards in the Second Boer War from 1899 to 1902. Penzer, p. 93 (“very rare”); Spink 55. SCARCE: We trace no copies at auction in the past 16 years.

Property from the Collection of Robert S. Brown, Cincinnati, Ohio

BURTON, Richard Francis, Sir (1821-1890). A New System of Sword Exercise for Infantry. London: William Clowes and Sons, 1876.