The Golden Cockerel Press. An excellent copy of Julius Caesar's (d.44 BC) Commentaries rendered into modern English by the author and politician Somerset de Chair (1911-1995). Illustrated with engraved vignettes by Clifford Webb and a double-page map of Julius Caesar's campaigns, in red morocco gilt by Bayntun-Riviere.

Comprising a translation of his two surviving works, the Bello Gallico and Bello Civili, on the Gallic and Civil Wars, written largely as a justification of his military campaigns, but also containing important early descriptions of Britain and the indigenous tribes who 'dye themselves with woad, which produces a blue colour, and makes their appearance in battle more terrible' (p.101).

The second work contains Caesar's account of the Civil War fought against the Roman General Pompey and the Senate in 49-48 BC, traditionally seen as marking the end of the Roman Republic, and the establishment of the Julio-Claudian dynasty that ruled in Rome until Nero's suicide in AD 68.

First edition, number 98 of 320 numbered copies printed in Baskerville type on Arnold's mould-made paper; folio (285 x 205 mm); double-page map by Edward Stanford, engraved frontispiece and vignettes by Clifford Webb, bookplate to front free endpaper verso, ownership inscription in pencil to recto map, small area of paper restoration to foot of map just into design, slight spotting to fore-edge otherwise internally clean; crushed red morocco gilt by Bayntun-Riviere, panels ruled in gilt, gilt spine in 6 compartments, top-edge gilt, others uncut, near fine; 311pp.