716. BERNARD LAW MONTGOMERY Very rare war-date signed book Poems From the Desert, London: George G. Harrap, 1944, bound in one-quarter navy leather with tan covers, gilt emblem and title on spine, 46pp., limited edition no. 4/110, signed "B. L. Montgomery General" on the limitation page, with a signed engraving opposite the title page signed by illustrator Stephen Gordon. A fine collection 27 poems, all but one of which were chosen from entries to a competition announced in the Christmas 1942 number of the Crusader, the Eighth Army's weekly paper. Only poems actually written in the Western Desert were to be submitted. The 27th poem, written on a scrap of paper and titled "A Soldier - His Prayer", was found by a soldier who was sheltering in a trench during the battle of El Agheila. Spine ends a bit rubbed, else very good and a nearly impossible book to find. $1,500 - 2,000