With mention of Evelyn Waugh. An immensely readable and often humorous memoir by a British employee of the Bank of Abyssinia in 1930s Ethiopia. With good detail on colonial life, Abyssinian finances, the Emperor, and a particularly vivid account of the Italian invasion of the country. Includes a mention of Evelyn Waugh, a representative of the pro-Italian Daily Mail and one of the 'continual stream of journalists, representing papers of nearly every nation in the civilised world' who flooded Addis Ababa following the outbreak of hostilities (p.49).

From his vantage point as banker to the Ethiopian government, the author had access to the inner-workings of the ancien régime during a particularly turbulent period of its history spanning the rise to power of the nation's last Emperor, Haile Selassie, to his defeat and subsequent exile under the fascist forces of Benito Mussolini. In one revealing passage he notes:

'We were in a somewhat bizarre position as bankers as we were in fact providing the Italians at the same time with the dollars which they were scattering broadcast in the interior of Abyssinia, with special success in the province of Gojjam, to foment internal revolution as soon as hostilities commenced… Matters were brought to a head by the Italian military attaché, Colonel Calderini, although a personal friend of mine, without as much as a by your leave sending in to us to cash a series of his personal cheques for an amount far beyond any possible needs for private expenses. They were obviously secret service allowances… a diplomatic incident was avoided but I am sure they thought the British Legation had instigated our actions with sinister intent to prevent the Italians obtaining funds for propaganda purposes'.

At times the experiences the author relays appear comical, if not farcical. A notable incident involved a 'gentleman of fortune' who had come to try his luck when crisis in Abyssinia came to the attention of the international news:

'[One] Harun el Rachid wished to change some Egyptian Bank notes and my clerk was not sure of their genuiness. I had often described Abyssinian affairs as comic opera but now apparently we were to be transported into the realms of the Arabian Nights. Mastering my astonishment, I enquired of what nationality was our new customer. My clerk replied German – curiouser and curiouser. So I asked to see his passport and sure enough he had been born as Herr Ruggenstein or something of the sort and legally changed his name to Harun el Rachid. He was soon afterwards deported under orders of the Abyssinian police as an undesirable suspected of espionage and, being non-Aryan, received no support from the German Legation'.

Later the memoir strays into to the absurd, with the author bragging that the complex code he had developed to send and receive telegrams based upon mathematical constants had 'as far as I could find out afterwards baffled the Italian experts'. Refusing the request of his friends to shelter at the British Legation once Addis Ababa had descended into rioting, the author instead turned his home into a fort, equipping his servants with rifles and a MG machine gun. Clearly reliving his war experiences, he speaks with enthusiasm of distributing 'the rum ration to my men in shape of whisky and hot water'. Indeed, it is in these vivid passages that the memoir comes alive:

'I heard my men hurrying to the back entrance shouting excitedly. I dashed out with the machine gun and a couple of spare magazines in my pocket. A band of about thirty or forty armed looters were on the main road where the lane from my back entrance came out and a group were already coming down it towards the house, obviously meaning business. I trained the machine gun on them from the stone barricade I had constructed. For a moment I paused with my finger on the trigger – should I shoot into their midst, but as they had not fired on me I let off half a magazine about a yard over their heads. There was a moment's hesitation and then they simply ran like rabbits'.




4to (25.75 x 21 cm); inscribed in pen 'Edward Grey by Edouard Press' to front free endpaper recto, later dated ownership inscription in pen to front free endpaper verso, 111 leaves typed on recto only; finely bound by Riviere & Son for Henry Sotheran, polished half calf gilt, spine in six compartments, green morocco labels to second and third, others richly gilt, raised bands, top edge gilt.