Presentation copy of Batty's account of the Waterloo campaign
SKU: 9859
Title:
Presentation copy of Batty's account of the Waterloo campaign
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An Historical Sketch of the Campaign of 1815, illustrated by plans of the operations and of the battles of Quatre Bras, Ligny, and Waterloo... second edition, considerably enlarged
Army officer and artist Robert Batty (1789-1848) served with the Grenadier Guards towards the end of the Peninsular War, and during the 1815 campaign he fought at Quatre Bras and at Waterloo, where he was slightly wounded in the thigh in the fierce fighting after the fall of La Haye-Sainte and the repulse of the final advance of the Imperial Guard. Read more
The most likely candidate for Colonel Thorn is career soldier Sir Nathaniel Thorn, who was made brevet lieutenant-colonel in 1817 and who Batty might easily have encountered in the Peninsula, where Thorn was present with the Buffs at many of the major actions (although, like so many of Wellington’s seasoned troops, he was in Canada in 1815, and so was not present at Waterloo). Thorn’s obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine (1857) described him as one of Wellington's last staff officers.
Condition & Materials
Second edition, 8vo. pp. [vi], 162, [ii] advertisement leaf + additional engraved partly hand-coloured portrait of the Duke of Wellington engraved by H Robinson after Sir Thomas Lawrence bound-in at front, 6 folding hand-coloured plans engraved by Nathaniel Rogers Hewitt and Batty himself, 3 folding letterpress tables setting out the French and Allied forces. Some spotting.
Publisher’s plain cloth-backed boards, a little worn, printed publisher’s paper label, headcaps and upper joint neatly repaired.
Presentation inscription from the author: ‘Col. Thorn, with the author’s respects’.
References
No bookplate, but from the library of WA Foyle, Beeleigh Abbey (lot 232 in the library of the late Christopher Foyle, Dominic Winter’s sale of 27 September 2023)
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