HOW TO SHOOT WITH A REVOLVER
Captain John Noel
FORSTER GROOM & CO., London, 1918
This is a practical revolver shooting handbook, written in 1917 by the celebrated Everest mountaineer and WW1 army officer Captain John Noel. Noel was an expert marksman and weapons instructor and this book was produced during WW1. It includes everything an officer would need to know about handling his service revolver. Noel compares the various models of service revolver, such as the Webley .455, the Smith & Wesson and the Colt, and highlights the relative merits of the revolver over the Automatic pistol. Noel was sceptical about the automatic pistol in general, although he considered the Luger Parabellum to be a superb weapon. He thought the automatic's square handle to be a disadvantage when aiming, something that the Luger overcame with its more ergonomic angled grip. Covering a wide range of topics, from how to hit various types of moving targets and how to select your ideal weapon, to the mechanism of the revolver and the care and maintenance of weapons, this would have been an invaluable guide for any officer in the trenches of the western front. The book is well illustrated with photographs and drawings.
John Baptist Lucius Noel (1890-1989) is now best known for The Epic of Everest (1924), his film of the 1924 Mount Everest expedition. A professional soldier whose regiment spent summers near the Himalayas, Noel served in WW1 before joining the 1922 Everest expedition as its official photographer and filmmaker. In 1924 Noel joined George Mallory on his ill-fated Everest expedition. Noel himself reached the North Col and used a specially adapted camera to film the final summit attempt. A note from George Mallory to Noel was the last contact anyone had with Mallory before his body was discovered high on the mountain in 1999. John Noel was also an expert marksman who wrote books on pistol shooting and navigation.
Condition:
In good condition. The card covers are in good condition with minor signs of wear. The binding and hinges are good and secure. The text block has been carefully reinforced with archival paper tape at page 28. The text and illustrations are in good condition.
Published: 1918
Grey card covers
Illustrated with photographs, diagrams and drawings
Dimensions: 105mm x 160mm
Pages: 73
