Histoire Illustree De La Guerre De 1914, Gabriel Hanotaux. This military book is titled “Histoire Illustree De La Guerre De 1914”, written by Gabriel Hanotaux and published in Paris and Bordeaux by Gounouilhou in 1915 and printed by G. de Malherbe in Paris. The text is in French, the title means “Illustrated History of the War of 1914”, it is filled with high-quality photos of the war and text to go with the photos. Gabriel Hanotaux (1853 - 1944) was a French statesman and historian; he became a civil servant rather than a party politician and rose through the ranks of the diplomatic service, and even though Britain and France fought on the same side in World War I, he didn’t trust the British because of the Fashoda Incident of 1898, which was a territorial dispute between Britain and France in East Africa, and the French got the worst of it. The incident was a major diplomat defeat and a national humiliation for France, and France needed help from Britain against the Germans during World War I, so it just rubbed salt in the wound for the French. Hanotaux also was elected a member of the Academie Francaise - the French Academy - a prestigious French group which had the authority to act on things pertaining to the French language - and he served as a delegate for France to the League of Nations, where he voted down a proposal to accept Esperanto as a working language; he was worried about the French language losing its position as the international language of diplomacy. The book is 1/4 bound, with maroon boards, a beautiful gilt-decorated spine, gilt lettering and a paste-down on the front cover showing Winged Victory, marbled boards, a half-title, a page saying the copyright date was 1915, then the title page which is also dated 1915, making the book a first edition, 291 pages of text and photos, an Errata leaf after the last photo, two pages of Contents (“Table Des Matieres” in French), a two-page list of engravings at the end (“Table Des Gravures”), which includes a listing for three maps (“Cartes”), and the top edge is gilt. This book is the first volume in a seventeen-volume set that was published between 1915 and 1924, the photos are in black-and-white, and the book is in very good condition. The book measures 13 x 10 1/4 in. wide, with a tight binding and clean pages and text, clean photos, and bright gilt. There’s rubbing at the heel and crown, a bit at the bottom edge of the front board and at the tips, light toning and a couple of small tears on the endpapers, hints of toning in some of the margins, and overall a very attractive copy of this photo history of World War I from the French point of view. We found only five complete seventeen-volume sets listed on the rare book website we use and they range in price from $380 to $860, single volumes generally range from $60 to $115, and the book was written by a French statesman who represented France in the best light. #209 #1520