CARRUTHERS, Douglas. Beyond the Caspian: A Naturalist in Central Asia. Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd, 1949.
A superb presentation copy from the author to Marshal of the Royal Air Force Charles Frederick Algernon Portal, 1st Viscount Portal of Hungerford, inscribed on the front free endpaper: “To Peter Portal with the Author’s compliments.” Portal was one of the leading RAF figures of the twentieth century, serving as Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command in 1940 and then as Chief of the Air Staff throughout the Second World War. The use of “Peter”, his familiar name among family and friends, gives the inscription a notably personal quality.
First edition, first impression. Octavo, original red cloth lettered in gilt to spine and upper board, in the original pictorial dust jacket, unclipped at 22/6 net. Illustrated with twenty-two full-page plates, six of them in colour, and with the folding colour map of Central Asia and adjacent regions at the rear.
The presentation is made especially interesting by the loosely inserted note on Carruthers’s own Elder Farm, Grimston, King’s Lynn headed paper, listing the book’s falconry references: “Falcons pp. 84, 152, 156-162, 208-212.” This appears to have been selected with Portal’s personal interests in mind. Portal had a long-standing enthusiasm for falconry, dating back to his youth, and the subject remained one of his private sporting and natural-history interests. Carruthers, himself a noted explorer, naturalist and Royal Geographical Society medallist, was well placed to appeal to that interest, particularly through his Central Asian observations on birds, hunting, landscape and native life.
A very good copy, the red cloth bright with light rubbing to extremities. Contents clean, inscription clear. Dust jacket very good, unclipped, with light soiling, rubbing, small chips and edge wear, but substantially complete and attractive. Folding map present.
Scarce in the original dust jacket, and especially desirable as a presentation copy. At the time of cataloguing, no other signed or presentation copy appears to be available on the market, and certainly none with comparable Portal and falconry provenance.
