War Memories four volume set Signed by Compton Mackenzie first editions 1929-40

War Memories [comprising Gallipoli Memories; First Athenian Memories; Greek Memories and Aegean Memories]
 
London: Cassell and Company Ltd/Chatto and Windus, 1929 - 1940
 
8vos of two sizes, 4 vols; the first three in matching black publisher’s cloth, lettered and ruled in gilt to spine with publisher’s device to foot; the fourth published in a larger format, in red boards lettered in gilt to spine; all in the original publisher’s printed dustwrappers priced 7/6, 7/6, 8/6 and 12s. 6d. respectively; pp. [viii], ix-x, 405, [i]; [viii], ix-x, 401, [i]; [vi], vii-xi, [i], 587, [i]; [vi], vii-xi, [i], 419, [i]; Vol I with frontis map on glossy paper; Vol III with photographic portrait; Vol IV with eight illustrations, a map of Greece and a frontis photograph showing the Proclamation of Provisional Government in Syria; very good copies all, the boards a little marked in places with light offsetting and some scattered spotting, particularly to the outer edges of text blocks; some spine tips a little pushed; dust wrappers with some minor rubbing and nicking at extremities; a couple of small closed tears; unrestored and very good otherwise. 
 
First editions all, with volume one signed by the author and dated the year following publication to the front free endpaper. The third volume in the series is incredibly scarce. In it, Mackenzie leaked a series of state secrets, and first edition copies were subsequently mass pulped by the publishers, making this a rare survivor. 
 
Born Edward Montague Compton in 1883, Mackenzie was raised in London, and was quickly perceived to be somewhat of a child prodigy. By the age of two, he was already reading adult novels, at four he began studying Latin and at nine Greek, languages which would go on to impact his life significantly. During the First World War, he was commissioned in the Royal Marines, and went on to serve with the British Intelligence in the Eastern Mediterranean. He is perhaps best known today for his two comedic novels, Whisky Galore (based on the true shipwreck of the S. S. Politician, which ran onto rocks in 1941, releasing a quarter of a million bottles of whisky into the ocean), and The Monarch of the Glenn, which later became a highly-successful television series. 
 
Mackenzie’s Memories detail his counter-espionage work during the Gallipoli campaign, during which time he became involved in a supposed plot to assassinate the King in August 1916, with the plan being to surround the palace with fire in an attempt to stop him escaping. Mackenzie founded the Aegean Intelligence Service in 1917, and was awarded an OBE two years later. Claimed by many to be the foremost collection of military, espionage and adventure stories ever told, the present volumes begin in Gallipoli, where the author covers the early days of the First World War, detailing his intelligence work in Greece, Turkey, and the Mediterranean and incorporating silk pajamas and champagne dinners along the way, to great comedic effect. It was, however, the third volume which was the most controversial. Detailing his time as head of an MI6 station in Athens during the war, it led to the author’s conviction under the Official Secrets Act for such acts as revealing the identity of the First Chief of MI6, Sir Mansfield Cumming (referred to as ‘C’). The resulting trial is detailed in Octave Seven (1931–38) of his autobiography. Although Parliament granted that a new version of Greek Memories be published in 1939 (removing any offending material), the original was banned for over 60 years, and not republished until 1994 in its full uncensored form, many years after the author’s death. Up until that time, it could not officially be read without permission from both MI6 and Government Lawyers, and was not even catalogued in the British Library, although the Bodleian did make it available in its ‘suppressed’ section. Mackenzie retaliated by releasing ‘Water on the Brain’, a satirical novel in which the HQ of the Directorate of Extraordinary Intelligence, MQ 99(E), run by ‘N’, becomes a lunatic asylum "for the servants of bureaucracy who have been driven mad in the service of their country".   
 
The offending book is now credited with being one of the first to draw public attention to the existence of a Secret Service. 
 
A wonderful set.