CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM, Robert Bontine. Portrait of a Dictator. Francisco Solano Lopez (Paraguay, 1865-1870).

CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM, Robert Bontine. Portrait of a Dictator. Francisco Solano Lopez (Paraguay, 1865-1870).CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM, Robert Bontine. Portrait of a Dictator. Francisco Solano Lopez (Paraguay, 1865 1870). London: Heinemann. [1933]. 8vo. Original cloth, spine lettered in gilt; pp. xv, 283, map and plates; binding a little sunned, offsetting from endpapers to the initial and finalfew leaves; otherwise very good. First edition, presentation copy inscribed and signed by the author on initial blank. The author was a Scottish radical Soialist and founder

CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM, Robert Bontine. Portrait of a Dictator. Francisco Solano Lopez (Paraguay, 1865-1870). London: Heinemann. [1933].

8vo. Original cloth, spine lettered in gilt; pp. xv, 283, map and plates; binding a little sunned, offsetting from endpapers to the initial and finalfew leaves; otherwise very good.

First edition, presentation copy inscribed and signed by the author on initial blank. The author was a Scottish radical Soialist and founder of the National Party of Scotland. 'Known to friends and South Americans as Don Roberto, described in The Times as the cowboy dandy, to socialists he was Comrade, while to Galsworthy and Epstein he was the modern Don Quixote … [He had] set out for South America at the age of seventeen. This was the first of several lengthy visits to America, during which he attempted cattle ranching and horse dealing; he rode with gauchos in Argentina, explored the forests of Paraguay, and trekked with a wagon train to Mexico City. During the First World War he worked in Uruguay, selecting horses for the British army; and it was in Buenos Aires, where he was widely respected, that he died on 20 March 1936. The South American journeys provided him with material for many of his tales and essays, and his historical studies include an account of the Jesuit missions in Paraguay, A Vanished Arcadia (1901), biographies of various conquistadores, and a life of Francisco Solano López (president of Paraguay, 1865–70)' (ODNB). The dictator's Irish mistress was Alice Eliza Lynch, the most vilified woman in Latin-American history. Cunninghame Graham of course deals with her case in this book.

SKU: 2116147