The Unbreakable Coil, Major ALK Anderson, South Staffs

[AndyJohnson]

One of the rare WW1 books for the South Staffs is Major ALK Anderson's 'The Unbreakable Coil'. Anderson was an offficer in the Special Reserves in August 1914 and so immediately mobilised. After a short time in Plymouth he joined the 2nd South Staffs (Aisne & Ypres).

He was already 44 years of age, and his health broke down and he returned to the UK in December 1914, not to return to front-line service. This book covers just his service until 1915, but he did continue to serve until 1919 in Garrison battalions and an Agricultural Company.

Years ago I was given an OCR-scanned copy of the book (I've forgotten who!) and slowly I corrected the many errors implicit in OCR and produced a copy I believe is very close to the original. I also researched and added a short biography of ALK. As ALK died more than 70 years ago (1941), the book is out of copyright.

For the benefit of myself and a few friends I created a printed copy via Blurb which I thought was rather good but expensive via Blurb because of their huge delivery charge. I followed Blurb's advice on how to add it to Amazon; it's taken 3 months but the book is now on Amazon.

It is available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unbreakablle-Coil-Major-ALK-Anderson/dp/B0BPR4K4CR

The price (£9.68) is beyond my control - I get the princely sum of zero for each copy. I post this here as the original book is near impossible to get, and it is well worth reading.

Contents page below.

Andy

  

[Dust Jacket Collector]

Thanks. Good to see this reprinted. It’s reminded me that I have a copy of the original which I’ve just shown on the Rare Book thread.

[Black Maria]

Thank you for that , i've been looking for a copy for many years !

[johntaylor]

Hi Andy, this is very public spirited of you and I would add that it's possible to upload files to Ancestry.org which would give it the widest possible circulation. I've never done it myself but the process is explained here: https://help.archive.org/help/how-to-upload-scanned-images-to-make-a-book/

All the best, John

[AndyJohnson]

Thanks for your kind words. I notice that Amazon now has one at the 'original' price of £9.68 and one at £12.06! I do hope they're not playing financial games, I don't imagine there's a stock anywhere and it's print on demand.

John, I'll take a look at archive.org when I get the chance, I wasn't aware. There's a copy of Deborah on the shelf behind me as I type! 

I do have the book as a pdf but it is the 'proof' copy so there were a few corrections to the 'current' version. However if anyone wants to read it and doesn't want a lovely paper copy for their shelves, then drop me a pm with an email address and I'll see what I can do.

Andy

[johntaylor]

Hi Andy, thanks for your efforts to restore a forgotten classic to public attention, and thanks also for your comment re Deborah!

All the best, John

Edited 24 February , 2023 by johntaylor

[Black Maria]

Just finished reading it . A great little book and another one that adds to our understanding of what the Old Contemptibles went through during the early months of the war .