First edition first print hardback of MCAUSLAN IN THE ROUGH by George MacDonald Fraser and published by Barrie & Jenkins Ltd. in 1974. Signed by Macdonald Fraser on the title page. Previous owner's gift inscription to front endpaper.

The book is in very good condition (red cloth boards with silver lettering to spine) with a little colour fading around the top board edges. The book is in a near fine unclipped dust jacket which is protected in an archival sleeve and has very light rubbing and creasing to the edges. Internally the pages are clean and tight and there are no tears or other inscriptions.

Private McAuslan, sometime known as the Tartan Caliban, and thoughtfully described by his platoon commander as 'the biggest walking disaster to hit the Army since Ancient Pistol', will be joyously familiar to readers of THE GENERAL DANCED AT DAWN. In that nostalgic memoir of life in a Highland Regiment after the last war, McAuslan first shambled into public view, manfully swinging his right arm in time with his right leg, and dropping pieces of soiled equipment as he came. He subsequently marched onto television as 'The Dirtiest Soldier in the World', and was greeted with more laughter, and disbelief - except from a generation of ex-Servicemen who recognised and remembered him, not without affection.

McAUSLAN IN THE ROUGH, the second volume of stories featuring 'Old Private Piltdown' (as the court-martial defence called him), includes such episodes as the desert mystery of Fort Yarhuna, the Great Regimental Quiz, the search for a deserter in a native town threatened by epidemic, McAuslan in love, and his finest and funniest hour as a caddy to that rugged Caledonian eminence, the Regimental Sergeant-Major, in a golf game whose importance makes the Open Championship look like a seaside putting competition. As his chronicler reminds us: McAuslan is always with us. He was probably at Cannae and Pharsalia, and hasnt washed since. And you can bet that he'll be there, more or less at attention, with his rusty rifle and his buttons undone, when the ranks fall in for Armageddon.

219 pages.

ISBN: 0214200108

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