The Night-Mare

London: Michael Joseph, 1954. 1st. hardback. Near fine, 1st edition, with unclipped d/j (v.g.), grey clothbound boards clean, red/black spine titling good; text block firm, pages unmarked; some foxing on edges.. 8vo: crown (200 x 140 / 8"" x 5_""). Ten tales of horror depicting the cynacism, terror and cruelty of Hitler's Nazi regime, which whilst fictional took as their basis sworn testimony from the Nuremburg and Belsen War Trials. Not one of these stories,' writes Mr Forester in his foreword, 'tells of an actual happening, but all of them except the last could easily have happened. From the thousands of pages of matter_s worn evidence at the Nuremberg and Belsen trials, sober history, self-exculpatory memoirs, and actual documents, which have appeared since the fall of the Nazi regime, could be gathered material for many stories, most of them hardly credible on account of their cynicism or horror ... During the dozen years of the Nazi regime in Germany,' Mr Forester continues, `things happened that could hardly find a parallel in the most debased days of the Roman Empire. Less than ten years ago people were dying by the hundred thousand at the word of one man, and that man not quite sane. It happened ten years ago; it seems quite certain that similar things are happening at this very moment in other countries where ruling gangs are established in power. There is no purpose in studying history,' Mr Forester concludes, `unless the lessons of the past are to influence policy in the present, and present policy can only have a basis in the lessons of the past.' For this clear and explicit purpose, there_fore, Mr Forester has written the stories contained in this book. The Nightmare is far removed from the adventures of Horn_blower, but the book has all the integrity and literary skill which distinguish Mr Forester's work.