Indiscretions of a Young Man

London: Harold Shaylor, 1931.

First Edition. 8vo. pp. xii + 251. Original navy blue boards with a couple of short, surface creases to lower, spine slightly faded with bright gilt titling. Mild browning to endpapers. A VG+ copy. Known as "Bodley of Arabia", Ronald Victor Courtney Bodley was a British Army officer, author and journalist. He was commissioned in the King's Royal Rifle Corps and served with them during the First World War. After the war he spent seven years in the Sahara desert, and then travelled through Asia. Bodley wrote several books about his travels. He was considered among the most distinguished British writers on the Sahara, as well as one of the main western sources of information on the South Seas Mandate. While in France in 1917 he suffered a breakdown as a consequence of being gassed, but his recollection was clear enough to record his experiences in Paris around the time of the Armistice and the following couple of years. He apparently reached the rank of colonel while in France, but in later life stylised himself as either 'Major' or 'Colonel' Bodley.