Young, Desmond — Rommel — First UK Edition, 1950 — Original Dustwrapper

Author: Desmond Young
Title: Rommel
Publisher: Collins, London
Date: 1950
Edition: First UK Edition, First Impression
Size: Octavo
Pagination: 288 pp.
Stock Code: 004183
Location: Bookroom

First UK edition, first impression, of Desmond Young’s influential early biography of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, published by Collins in 1950, with a foreword by Field-Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck. The book appeared only six years after Rommel’s death and was one of the earliest substantial English-language biographies to shape the post-war image of the German commander. The Open British National Bibliography records the 1950 Collins edition at 288 pages and notes that it incorporates material by Rommel on the North African campaign of 1941–43.

Desmond Young had first-hand experience of the North African war. A serving British officer, he was captured during the Battle of Gazala in 1942 and briefly encountered Rommel. That background gave his biography an immediacy which helped distinguish it from later secondary studies. The book examines Rommel’s military career, his conduct in North Africa, his reputation among Allied troops, and the circumstances of his death following the July 1944 plot against Hitler. It is illustrated with photographic plates, maps and map endpapers.

The foreword by Sir Claude Auchinleck, one of Rommel’s principal British opponents in the Western Desert, gives the book additional historical weight. The juxtaposition is particularly interesting: Young writes as a British officer who had been captured in the North African campaign, while Auchinleck contributes the perspective of a senior commander who had fought directly against Rommel.

The book also had a significant cultural afterlife. Young’s biography was used as a principal source for the 1951 film The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel, helping to establish the popular post-war image of Rommel in Britain and the United States.

The present copy retains the striking original pictorial dustwrapper, with a painted portrait of Rommel in uniform to the front panel and advertisements for Eric Williams’s The Wooden Horse to the rear. The binding is nice and tight, the publisher’s cloth bright and clean, and the pages are generally nice and clean. The dustwrapper is very good, with slight nicking, chipping and rubbing at the extremities and light general wear, but remains bright and visually impressive. It is now protected in an easily removable clear acetate sleeve.

Near fine in a very good original dustwrapper.

A particularly attractive first edition of one of the most influential early post-war biographies of Rommel, with the added historical interest of Auchinleck’s foreword and Young’s own direct experience of the North African campaign.

Stock code: 004183. Location: Bookroom.

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