Crown quarto. Pp. (vi), iv, vii, (i), iv, (ii), 720, 40, 20, viii, ii. Half-title, title, dedication, preface, introduction. Extra title-page, illustrated with allegorical motifs and printed in tinted lithograph. Plus 2 handsome plates in tinted lithograph, depicting battle scenes, and 3 fine lithographic portraits, all with facing tissue guards. Plus one full-page lithograph ordnance map with additional colour added by contemporary hand. Plus 6 large folding lithograph maps, one with additional colours added by contemporary hand to represent troop positions, all bound at rear. With 2 engraved maps, printed in letterpress, to the text. Footnotes, appendices, bibliography, index. Hardcover, bound in contemporary half calf and pebbled cloth, spine richly decorated in gilt, cloth inner hinges, red ribbon signet; scattered foxing, corners rubbed, bumped. In about fine condition. Some leaves still unopened. A very handsome copy. ~ First edition. This copy is, or was intended to be, a Presentation Copy from the Author to Maréchal Comte Randon, Marshall of France. With an autograph letter, handwritten in ink in a very neat hand by Gerlach, signed by himself, dated March 2, 1860, addressed to the Maréchal. It comprises a large leaf folded into a four-page document (last page blank), with 47 lines of text, date, and signature. "I request Your Excellency to be willing to accept this copy of the Military annals of the Dutch East-Indies," it opens, written in French. Expressing his appreciation to Randon's military achievements, he begs that the book will be presented to His Majesty the Emperor of the French, continuing, "Voilà monsieur le Maréchal ce qui me porte à vous offrir ce travail et à vous prier d'être mon interprète auprès de l'Auguste chef du peuple français pour que Sa Majesté daigne accepter un exemplaire de mon livre." The letter is in exceptionally fine condition though a bit foxed. Jacques Louis César Alexandre, Maréchal Comte Randon (1795-1871). The author, Abraham Jean Arnaud Gerlach, was born in 1811 in Groningen. He received his education at the Koninklijke Militaire Academie, graduating as Lieutenant of the Artillery. As Colonel he later had a long teaching career at the same academy, and contributed regularly to military studies and publications. He translated his "Fastes militaires des Indes" into Dutch, and published it in Zalt-Bommel and Paris in 1874-75 as the three-volume set "Neerlands heldenfeiten in Oost-Indië". He died in 1906. The importance of this work is remarkable: OCLC lists no less than 20 major North American libraries who keep a copy, including Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Washington, Princeton, and Columbia university libraries, as well as NYPL. [Descriptive text Copyright Librarium, The Hague]
