first edition, first issue with map in pocket at end, 21 plates by Rex Whistler and Mary Forster-Knight (14 by Whistler) and 19 head- & tail-pieces by Whistler, one hand-coloured, folding map in pocket, advertisement leaf at end, front free endpaper browned, original yellow cloth with lettering and decoration in brown, dust-jacket featuring the colour plate, spotted and soiled, rather frayed at edges with some loss, preserved in cloth portfolio, 8vo, John Lane, 1925; with the original pen and ink drawings by Whistler for the 19 head- and tail-pieces for the book , 20 drawings on 13 sheets (one of building with minarets unused), 3 signed with initials, most annotated with page or chapter nos. in pencil, each sheet tipped into aperture mount, mounts c.335 x 265mm. , 1924-25; additional pen and ink sketch for the plate 'A Breach of Promise' , c.270 x 150mm., note by Laurence Whistler at head, with pen and ink sketch of Pinner Wood House in Middlesex (much-loved home of the Whistler family 1923-24) on verso, pencil dates and annotations to both in another hand, 1923-24, drawings together in cloth portfolio ; proofs of the plates and illustrations including the unused one, plates with printed captions pasted below, margins a little soiled, loose in cloth portfolio ; press reviews of the book , mostly newspaper cuttings, tipped into volume of blank leaves, modern crimson morocco, 8vo, [c.1925], all together in silk-lined crimson morocco drop-back box with lock and key, one or two small scratches, [Whistler & Fuller 414 but with details of head- & tail-pieces incorrect, omitting head-piece of waterfall and listing but not numbering the final tail-piece] (a box) Whistler's first book illustrations . The author, Sir Frank Swettenham, one-time Governor-General and Commander-in chief of the Straits Settlements, wrote several books about the Malay Archipelago but this was the only one in a different setting and his only novel. The North African setting is hardly typical of Whistler's work but it was a start in the commercial art world and the illustrations are accomplished despite his young age. One of the head-pieces depicts a heavily-laden car in snow, the number plate is "RJW 19", the artist's initials and age.