The Riddle of the Sands - photo 1
The Riddle of the Sands - photo 2
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The Riddle of the Sands

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£ 18 900
Auction dateClassic
28.09.2023 13:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
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ID 1016433
Lot 17 | The Riddle of the Sands
The Riddle of the Sands

Erskine Childers

Erskine CHILDERS (1870-1922). The Riddle of the Sands. A Record of Secret Service Recently Achieved. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1903.



The first modern spy novel: presentation copy of the first edition. A Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone. Its author, a skilled yachtsman, ‘became convinced that Germany planned to invade England via the [Frisian] Islands. He turned his belief into a fictional adventure, The Riddle of the Sands [in which] two British yachtsmen stumble on German plans to launch an invasion of England from the Frisians. Childers’ invasion theory was so realistic that the first edition of the novel carried a note from the First Sea Lord, Adm. Sir John Fisher, who wrote: “It so happens that, while this book was in the press, a number of measures have been taken by the Government to counteract some of the very weaknesses and dangers which are alluded to above”’ (Polmar and Allen). The Riddle of the Sands ‘launched a wave of British spy novels, including two by Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent (1907) and Under Western Eyes (1911)’. Polmar and Allen, Spy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage.



Octavo. Folding frontispiece map, and three maps, one folding (short tear in gutter of half-title). Original black cloth, sailboat in white on front cover (endpapers mildly browned, spine gently rolled, some light marks); custom cloth box. Provenance: Edmund Spencer Eardley Childers (1854-1919; authorial presentation inscription on front pastedown: ‘To Spencer Childers from his affection cousin Erskine Childers June 1903’) – sold Sotheby’s London, 21-22 July 1988, lot 155.

Place of origin:Northern Europe, Europe, United Kingdom
Auction house category:Printed books
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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28.09.2023 – 28.09.2023
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