Kriegs Akademie. Rückblick vom März 1900. Hörsaal II c.
Berlin: Printed by H. Winckler, 1900. First edition. Hardcover. Folio. 45 leaves. Original black and purple cloth design with gilt lettering on cover. Decorative endpapers. Title page with vignette. Hand colored second title page with uniquely stylized typography reading Höhepunkt (Highlight). Third title page with hand colored illustration. Original photograph on fourth title page. Lithographed auditorium with seating chart in facsimile handwriting on fifth title page.
Satyrical publication reviewing the activities of the 1898–1901 class of staff officers at the Prussian War Academy. Lavishly illustrated with head and tail pieces and intricate b/w and hand colored in-text illustrations. Eight of the leaves, including the four title pages, feature illustrations on heavy cardstock, some of them handcolored, respectively b/w and color lithographs and one original photograph of the graduating class in unifrom and coats. The text contributions, starting with a chapter titled the "Class observer," are mostly lyrical black humorous tales in rhymed couplets with few prosaic renderings in the same fashion featuring the various members and activities of the staff officers class. A second chapter relates to military tactics followed by "Epm al Tarheg, der grosse Zauberer und Hüter des heiligen -Inte-Gral- (Ein arabisches Märchen). (Epm al Tarheg, the great magician and guardian of the holy -Inte-Gral- (An Arabic Fairytale). The contributions cover a variety of military and class subjects with one poem and a short comedy in French. True to the style of a magazine a set of comical ads of various class members are printed at rear ending with the "Culmination," a cynical poem on the general attitude expected at the Academy.
Text in German, Gothic script. Some wear along edges of binding with very light fraying at corners and head of spine. Front cover with some soiling. Starting after the first third of publication. Binding in overall good-, interior in good to very good condition. g- to vg. Item #42716
Price: $1,750.00