Purnell's History of the First World War

[feldpost 58]

Hi gents,

What could be a more lucrative time for publishers to reissue these magazines?
100 years since WW1.
Unforunately, young people seem totally disinterested in both World Wars, they think stormtroopers are characters out of "Star Wars"
They may have lost the plot - or have we?

Best wishes,

John.

[Darrell]

Whats strange about the WW1 set, I don't believe it was ever re-released in North America. Which is rather strange. I wonder why?

Yet the WW2 set was released at least 3 times. Twice by Purnell and once by Marshall Cavendish.

[Darrell]

Hi gents,

What could be a more lucrative time for publishers to reissue these magazines?
100 years since WW1.

Best wishes,

John.

I thought about that ... it would likely work fairly well for the WW1 set, but the WW2 set is pretty dated. Some of the material was "current" in 1968 but not so much in 2013. Issues like the Katyn story. At the time the Soviets still blamed the Germans, even though the commentary from the British side pretty much knew the (as yet unreleased or admitted) truth.

Also quite a bit of commentary was rather strange. Example some of the later Post WW2 issues (last two volumes) talk about man's race to the moon (which man had not even landed yet).

But other than that, with some work they could be updated and would make a really good collection. I don't know how all the copyright laws would come into play as these companies don't exist anymore (AFAIK).

[Darrell]

A few weeks back I re-read this entire series. Even though these are nearly 50 years old, they are still fairly relevant and a great set.

[Roysto]

Thanks for posting these images!

I acquired 127 of the magazines back in 1979 - and wrote to the publisher about the missing one (No.4). Remarkably, they sent it to me (charging me the original cover price) complete with wall chart.

Over the years I read various sections, then - during the 1991 Gulf War - thought it was about time to read the whole thing, which I did.

Despite subsequent scholarship and occasional revisionism, it remains a magnificent, all-encompassing work, I don't think there'll be anything quite like it ever again.

[Purnell]

I grew up with these

Hello first post in the forum. My father had both the WW1 and WW2 sets bound and also there was a 20th century one. He stored them in my bedroom and I actually learnt to read by reading them as they were sitting in a bookshelf in my room. This was the mid 70s. I had that SE 5A as a poster on my wall and I think there was information on Albert Ball. My father passed away 30 years ago and unfortunately my mother decided to send them and a lot of other things off to an auction place while I was overseas. So for historical and sentimental reasons I am now at an age where I could really appreciate them. I live in the Caribbean so waiting for a set to come up is not an option as the shipping would be insane. Is anyone interested in having me pay for them to be scanned? If someone was interested I could pay for them to be scanned in your city (with paypal etc) and all I would ask is a pin drive and shipping which I would pay for. It would be convenient for you to as you could read them on an ipad and if some family member threw them out well you would always have the pdf.

Purnell