Handbook of British Malaya 1926.

First edition of the first issue of this scarce handbook of Malaysia, mainly designed for British troops stationed abroad. Not often found with the map.

By the 1920s Britain had started to institute decentralisation policies in Malaysia with the intent to entice the remaining unfederated states such as Johor to join the Federated Malay States with the eventual intent of folding them in with the Straits Settlements and British Borneo. This would eventually be scuppered by the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia in 1941, but the British presence still forms an important part of Malaysian history and the present work records the country as it was in the inter-war period with numerous photographs of both Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

First edition; 8vo (21.5 x 18 cm); 60 photographic plates including full page portrait frontispiece, folding map to rear pocket, discreet contemporary ownership inscription to endpapers, minor insect damage to map but only affecting ocean extremities, one small wormhole to first couple leaves; publisher's original half cloth, contrasting printed red boards, black lettering to spine, slightly rubbed, still a very good copy; [vi], 183 pp.