[MILITARY] We were the rats (presentation copy for Pearl Goldman)

Sydney : Angus and Robertson, 1945 (1st edition). Octavo, brown cloth over boards (worn), spine with printed lettering (split to tail), 275 pp. A presentation copy inscribed for Pearl Goldman (one of Norman Lindsay’s most celebrated artist’s models): “To Pearl, in appreciation of ‘Imperia’, with best wishes from Lawson. Sydney, January 1946.”

During the Second World War prints of Norman Lindsay’s dramatic, risque works were popular morale boosters amongst troops of the AIF – even at the siege of Tobruk, the story of which Glassop recounts in this book. Pearl Goldman was the model who posed for the painting ‘Imperia’, regarded by Lindsay as “one of the best nudes I ever painted”.